Abstract
This paper shows that, as far as one entertains the traditional view of lexical meaning as determinate, the meaning of the word child-just like a problem child-is rather difficult to deal with because its character is not understood adequately; in order to treat it properly, one must take the PROTOTYPE view of lexical meaning. After reviewing previous analyses, it is argued that the meaning of child is inherently indeterminate and hence is best accounted for by a prototype analysis; it is also made clear that the notion of prototype plays an important role in so-called identity-of-sense anaphora such as one-pronominalization.
