The question of whether word meanings have internal structure identical in kind to the syntax of sentences is examined. Evidence is sought for the structural aspects of word meaning and the issue of whether judgements of similarity between words is based on meaning content or on meaning structure is raised. Four hypotheses were tested: (1)…

The author outlines the construction of a somewhat different machine than that envisioned by Turing (with which it would be possible to converse, presumably by telephone or telegraph, and which would be capable of masquerading as a human being). The machine envisaged by the author would be capable of doing comprehension exercises. Such a machine…

Because of a lack of systematic structuring, much of the research pertaining to the variables influencing the reader's use of context as an aid to determining the meaning of textual units is limited in its applicability. Some of the major variables that have been found to influence the reader's use of context are constraints of textual segment,…

Three- and four-year-old children were asked to perform a judgement task in which they chose between incorrect English transitives and intransitives and their correct adult equivalents. Purely semantic or syntactic models fail to explain the findings as well as does a model based on semantic/syntactic transitivity. (SED)

Article explained the use of TESL, a program with a primary aim of teaching children how to utilize situationally-appropriate English. (Author/RK)

Examines evidence supporting the view that speech recoding is necessary prior to lexical access, explores an alternative view (that speech recoding occurs in working memory), describes an experiment suggesting that meaning analyses during reading can occur without speech recoding in working memory, and discusses models of reading. (GT)

The proposed framework assumes six developmental stages according to mean length of utterance in morphemes. Within each stage, syntactic forms and semantic relations interact. In assessment, each utterance is analyzed for features which describe current language abilities. Language goals are developed based on existing and expected features.…

In a review of two decades of vocabulary research, it is noted that vocabulary has moved from "poor relation" to "guest of honor" status in language teaching. Research areas include specialized bibliographies, vocabulary acquisition, vocabulary teaching, course materials, and lexicography. Future research directions are suggested, including…

Examines a computer-based corpus that provides the data for a comprehensive investigation of clitic climbing in written and spoken modern Spanish. The results are based on nearly 15,000 tokens with 32 different main verbs from a computer corpus of 3.5 million words from ten countries. Clitic climbing is more common in spoken than in written…

Semantic categorization and concept formation models were used as the bases for intervention with adolescents with language-learning disabilities. The approach embraced such teaching procedures as collaboration, holism, student centeredness, guided questioning and scaffolding, and semantic word webbing. The use of cognitive-linguistic training…

Examines the phenomenon of semantic change with regard to color categories in closely related Mayan languages (Tzetal and Tzotzil) associated with radically different social milieux. It is argued that, although a model of individual cognition explains how color categories change at the basic level, a social model accounts for differences between…

Assessed semantic priming for category coordinates and function-related words in children with good or poor reading comprehension, matched for decoding skill. Found that both groups showed priming for function-related words, but poor comprehenders showed priming for category coordinates only if the pairs shared high-association strength. Good…

Presents a distributed connectionist model of the perception of spoken words, employing speech representation that combines lexical and abstract phonological information, with lexical access as a direct mapping on this distributed representation. The article examines the integration of partial cues to phonological identity, showing that the model…