Current models of word production offer different accounts of the representation of homophones in the lexicon. The investigation of how the homophone status of a word affects lexical access can be used to test theories of lexical processing. In this study, homophones appeared as word distractors superimposed on pictures that participants named…

A core area of phonology is the study of phonotactics, or how sounds are linearly combined. Recent cross-linguistic analyses have shown that the phonology determines not only phonotactics but also the articulatory coordination or timing of adjacent sounds. In this article, I explore how the relation between coordination and phonotactics affects…

In 3 experiments, participants saw lists of 16 words for free recall with or without a 6-digit immediate serial recall (ISR) task after each word. Free recall was performed under standard visual silent and spoken-aloud conditions (Experiment 1), overt rehearsal conditions (Experiment 2), and fixed rehearsal conditions (Experiment 3). The authors…

A study examined the relative contributions of age, sex, and education to verbal and nonverbal fluency in a normal population. Sixty-seven subjects aged 12 to 71 years performed paper-and-pencil tasks proven to be dependent on the right and left hemispheric modalities of the frontal lobes. Multiple t-tests were applied to determine whether…

In a statement-response-reply format, a proposition concerning the study of semantics is made and debated in three papers by two authors. In the first paper, it is proposed that semantics is not the study of the concept of meaning, but rather a neurolinguistic issue, despite the fact that semantics is linked to context. It is argued that semantic…

The linguistic structure of specific introductory type clauses, which appear at a relatively high frequency in the utterances of a severely brain damaged fluent aphasic with neologistic jargon speech, is examined. The analysis is restricted to one fifty-six-year-old male patient who suffered massive subdural hematoma. (SCC)

How significantly is Broca's Area related to speech? It is considered here to be definitely a component in the language mechanism of the brain. It is also stated that this area is unique to people and that it has no unitary function, yet it is specialized for certain expressive (motor) functions. (SCC)

Sentences written in either an expanded or optionally deleted form were read for imitation and delayed recall to a group of nursery school children and a group of adults. Results and their implications are discussed. (Author/RM)

A study was made to assess the effect of comprehension on the recognition of meaning and wording changes with concrete and abstract sentences. The results of the experiment were discussed in light of recent models which propose different storage mechanisms for concrete and abstract sentences. (Author/RM)

The relation definition theory proposed in this paper is explicitly different from previous semantic memory theories since it is the first to make a relation's definition the basis of semantic processing. The paper suggests that this relation definition theory successfully predicts relation similarity on the basis of one key primary assumption:…

Previous research has shown that adults tend to narrow the meanings of words encountered in context, a process that has been termed instantiation. In the present study, 60 first and fourth graders selected pictures which best represented the meanings of sentences read to them. The sets of pictures included three examples of a target word in each…

After presenting a brief description of the principles of a story grammar, some experimental results are summarized to illustrate the power of story schemata in controlling recall. Specially constructed versions of four stories were used with second, fourth, and sixth graders and in a second experiment with adults. One version of each story was…

Examines the inhibition of recall of list items when extralist items are introduced, and describes experiments which suggest that this is an expression of a more general inhibition phenomenon. (Author/AM)

A model of natural language generation based on an underlying language-free representation of meaning is described. A computer implementation of this model, called BABEL, has been developed at Stanford University. It is able to produce sentence paraphrases which demonstrate understanding with respect to a given context. Available from Association…

Children's use of proforms in spoken descriptions of real situations was studied and compared with that of adults to explore possible developmental progressions in the use of indexical reference. A discourse distinction between situational and textual reference was applied to data from 6-year-old and 10-year-old children and from adults. Subjects…