The Lexicon: Some Psycholinguistic Evidence. Working California Univ

DOCUMENT RESUME ED 101 569 FL 006 465 AUTHOR Baker, Lorain Nancy TITLE The Lexicon: Some Psycholinguistic Evidence. Working Papers in Phonetics 26. INSTITUTION California Univ., Los Angeles. Dept. of Linguistics. PUB DATE Jul 74 NOTE 138p. AVAILABLE FROM University Microfilms, P.O. Box 1764, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 EDRS PRICE MF-$0.76 HC Not Available from EDRS. PLUS POSTAGE DESCRIPTORS *Cognitive Processes; Lexicology; Linguistic Theory; Models; *Phonology; *Psycholinguistics; *Speech; *Vocabulary ABSTRACT The aim of this work is to provide a first-approximation model of the lexicon as stored and used in speech prciuction and perception. Both the form of the stored item and the form of the storage network is of concern. Five lexical models--the Transformational model, the Wickelgren model, the Fromkin (speech error) model, the MacKay (speech error) model, and the Brown and McNeill ('tip of the tongues) odel-- are discussed. The data on which these models are based is summarized, and various' hypotheses on which the models depend are tested. The issue of the ordering of phonological segments in the stored representation of words is considered in Chapter 3. The issue of the interrelations of lexical items and the form of the storage network is considered in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 deals with the possibility of a hierarchical representation of the phonological structure of lexical items, Chapter 6 deals with the representation of the lexical item with regard to semantic features. (Author/KM) "PERMISSION 70 REPRODUCE IrliS Vro U S DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH. EDUCATION A WELFARE COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL BY MICRO- NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF FICHE ONLY HAS BEEN GRANT II BY EDUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRO DUCED EXACTLY .5 RECEIVED FROM THE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGIN TO ERIC AND bgGANIZATIONS OPERAT ATING IT POiNI5 07 VIEW OR OPINIONS ING UNDER AGREEMENTS WITH THE NA STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRE TIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION SENT OFFICIAL NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF FURTHER REPRODUCTION OUTSIDE EDUCATION POSITION OR POLICY THE ERIC SYSTEM REQUIRES PERMIS SION OF THE COPYRIGHT OWNER " The Lexicoa: Some Psycholinguistic Evi4ence Lorian Nancy Baker 4 CO Working Papers in Phonetics 26 July 1974 University of California, Los Angeles O O Table of Contents Acknowledgments iii .Abstract iv Chapter 1 Introduction 1 Chapter 2 Models of the Lexicon 5 Chapter 3 Experiment 1: Order in the Lexical Representation 143 Chapter 4 Experiment 2: Lexical Organization 55 Chapter 5 . Experiment 3: Groups and Hierarchies 82 Chapter 6 Semantic Features 97 Chapter 7 Conclusions 118 Bibliography 127 Acknowledgments I am grateful to Victoria Fromkin, not only for her criticism and svggestions for this work, but also for her concern and guidance throughout my career as a graduate student. I would also like to acknowledge the guidance and support given to me by Peter Ladefoged and the patient explanations of statistics provided by Breyne Moskowitz. Finally, I am thankful for the encouragement and moral support provided by my friends Rosa Needleran, Helen Martucci, Mickey Krieger and especially Marshall Buck. This work was supported in part by grants from the Canada Council and the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NS 9780). iii Abstract The aim of this work is to provide a first-approximation model of the lexicon as stored and used in speech production and perception. Both the form of the stored item and the form of the storage network is of concern. Plrformance data from a wide range of sources is considered. Five lexical models-- the Transformational model, the Wickelgren model, the Fromkin (speech error) model, and MacKay (speech error) model, and the Brown and McNeill ('tip of the tongue') model-- are discussed. The data upon which these models are based is summarized and various of the hypotheses upon which the models depend are tested. The issue of the ordering of phonological segments in the stored representation of words is considered in Chapter 3. Here, word association evidence and experimental evidence are cited. This evidence indicates that an unordered model of storage (such as that of Wickelgren) is inadequate. The issue of the interrelations of lexical items and the 14rm of the storage network is considered in Chapter 4. Experimental evidence (involving a continuous, controlled word association test) is provided which indicates that the lexical network consists of a number of sub-groupings of lexical items as has been suggested in the Fromkin model. The features by which lexical items are grouped are apparently not those enumerated by Brown and McNeill as being prominent in generic recall. Chapter 5 deals with the possibility of a hierarchical representation of the phonological structure of lexical items. Experimental evidence is presented which appears to support MacKay's hierarchical model, but an alternative explanation for this evidence is provided. Chapter 6 deals with the representation of the lexical item with regard to semantic features. The questions of a semantic feature hierarchy and of semantic sub-sets in the lexical network are considered. Word Association evidence, aphasia evidence, and evidence from experimentation is analyzed. Chapter 1 Introduction The lexicon is the speaker's store of words or formatives. Models of both linguistic performance and linguistic competence must then include a lexicon. Those who distinguish between these two aspects of language and language behavior define "competence" as the innate knowledge that a speaker has about his language. A performance model attempts to represent how that knowledge is organized in the speaker's brain, and how a speaker uses that knowledge in the production and perception of utterances. It is often assumed that a performance model incorporates, or is based upon, a competence model. Dingwall (1971) states: The grammar constructed by the psychological linguist is in fact held to be an abstract representation of some functionally equivalent mechanism in the brain which in turn represents the speaker-hearer's knowledge of his language as opposed to the means by which he makes use of this knowledge. Although the grammar is thus not a performance model, it is generally assumed that it constitutes a component of-sUch a model whieb in addition contains an as yet vaguely npecified set of strategies for making use of the grammar in production and recogniton (Dingwall, 1971, 780-1). Chomsky (1965) similarly notes that a correct performance model must bJ based upon a model of linguistic competence: the;only concrete results that have been achieved and the only clear suggestions that have been put forth concerning the theory of_performance hay, come from studies of performance models that incorporate generative grammars of specific kinds--that is, from studies that have been based on assumptions about underlying competence (Chomsky, 1965, 10). A competence model of the lexicon specifies the features of words that speakers must know in order to be able to produce and uiderst and the words in sentences. Transformational, or 'generative' linguistics has attempted to formulate such a model. Fillmore (1968) notes that a model of the lexicon must specify, for each word: i) the nature of the deep-structure syntactic environments into which the item May be inserted; ii) the properties of the item to which the rules o: grammar are sensitive iii) for an item that can be used as a 'predicate' the number of arguments' that it conceptually requires; 2 iv) the role(s) which each argument plays in the situation which the item, as predicate, can be used to indicate; v) the presuppositions or 'happiness conditions' for the use of the item, the conditions which must be satisfied in order for the item to be used 'aptly'; vi) the nature of the conceptual or morphological related- ness of the item to other items in the same language; vii) its meaning; and viii) its phonological and orthographic shapes (Fillmore, 1968, 1). The above information in the lexicon is considered to be represented by categories or "features"; and each word of a language is viewed as composite of these features. Any given word will then be represented by a largenumber of features: Phonological features (not predictable by rule) will describe each sound which occurs in the word. Syntactic features will specify the lexical category ('part ofspeech') of the word,As well as defining the syntactic environment into which the word can be fitted. Semantic features will indicate the meaning of the item. (In later versions of the Standard theory of Transformational grammar, the meaning of each lexical item is represented as a hierarchical tree diagram cf. Katz, 1972). Morphological features will provide information about how a word behaves with regard to the rules of the language of which it is a member. And finally, exception features will group those words of the language which behave anomalously with regard to some or several of the rules of the language. Thus a speaker's ability to use a word correctly shows that he trr,c, have tacit knowledge of the word's phonological, semantic and syntactic features. To produce an utterance, the speaker must have some mental image (or cognitive structure) of what he wants to say. He must find the precise words with which to say it, and must combine these words into phrases and sentences. Thus, one task of the speaker is to find the word he wants to use. A description of the production of an utterance must therefore include a description of theword-finding mechanism. Similarly, a performance model of the lexicon should include a description of how the lexicon is organized or 'indexed' so that speakers access particular words. There has beefi much debate concerning the representation of the lexical items. In generative phonology the present debate centers or the extent to which such representation is abstract, i.e., different from the phonetic representation.

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