The present paper reports the analysis of a diary study of a German-speaking child and reveals interrelations between semantic and phonological development: some of the subject's overextensions were explained by a deliberate avoidance of a form and the use of an easily pronounecable substitute rather than by erroneous attempts to map linguistic and non-linguistic knowledge. These results suggest that there may be phonological as well as lexical or conceptual reasons for children to (apparently) overextend the meaning of a word. The findings emphasize the danger of a modular analysis. Different linguistic levels should not be seen individually and independent of one another.
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