The present thesis investigates the role of semantic alternatives and logical strength in a number of empirical domains. Firstly, the thesis deals with the semantic contribution of focus on (bound) pronouns (chapters 2-3). The main results are as follows: First, focus on bound pronouns is interpreted by an operator (Rooth 1992b) in the scope of…

The interface between the conceptual and lexical systems was investigated in a word production setting. We tested the effects of two conceptual dimensions--semantic category and visual shape--on the selection of Chinese nouns and classifiers. Participants named pictures with nouns ("rope") or classifier-noun phrases ("one-"classifier"-rope") in…

This study investigated the relevance of type of practice and presence of semantic representation for orthographic learning in learning to spell. A total of 36 students in Grade 2 (mean age = 7 years 10 months) were exposed to 10 novel nonwords, 5 of which were paired with semantic information. Half of the participants practiced reading these new…

In these studies, we examined how a default assumption about word meaning, the mutual exclusivity assumption and an intentional cue, gaze direction, interacted to guide 24-month-olds' object-word mappings. In Expt 1, when the experimenter's gaze was consistent with the mutual exclusivity assumption, novel word mappings were facilitated. When the…

Theories of categorization need to account for ways in which people use their creativity to categorize things, especially in the context of similarity. The current three-phase study is a preliminary attempt to understand how people group concepts together as well as to explore the role of similarity between concepts in creative categorization.…

Two voluntary task-switching experiments probed the influence of previous exposures to stimuli and categorizations of these stimuli on task choice during subsequent exposures to the same stimuli. Subjects performed origin and size judgments under standard voluntary task-switching instructions to perform the tasks equally often in a random order.…

The effects of semantic and phonetic radicals on Chinese character decoding were examined. Our results suggest that semantic and phonetic radicals are each available for access when a corresponding task emphasizes one or the other kind of radical. But in a more neutral lexical recognition task, the semantic radical is more informative. Semantic…

Intensional verbs like "want" select for clausal complements expressing propositions, though they can be perfectly natural when combined with a direct object. There are two interesting phenomena associated with intensional transitive expressions. First, it has been suggested that their interpretation requires enriched compositional operations,…

Research has shown that following a sentence fragment such as "John impressed Mary because...," people are most likely to refer to John, whereas following "John admired Mary because...," Mary is the preferred referent. Two written completion experiments investigated whether such semantic biases affect the choice of anaphor (pronouns vs. names).…

Vocabulary knowledge is an important predictor of literacy and broader academic outcomes, and children's literature is a rich source of sophisticated vocabulary. This study investigated the effect of providing instruction in word meanings as an adjunct to story-book read-aloud sessions in Grade One classrooms. The main intervention programme ran…

At present, Thailand is confronting a serious problem of alcohol drinking behavior which needs to be solved urgently. This research aimed to identify the semantic factors on alcohol drinking behavior and to use maternal instinct driving for housewives as village health volunteers in rural communities, Thailand. Two methods were implemented as the…

The study applied the Multi-Dimensional analysis used by Biber (1988) to examine the functional parameters of essays. Co-occurrence patterns were identified within an essay corpus (n=1529) using a linguistic indices provided by Co-Metrix. These patterns were used to identify essay groups that shared features based upon situational parameters.…

The researcher examined the effects of two alternative instructional methods, Programmed Learning Sequenced (PLS) and Interactive Whiteboard (IWB), on the mathematics achievement and attitude of eighth graders. The relationship between specific Dunn & Dunn learning-style elements and the posttest scores after instruction with the PLS and IWB…

College students ("n" = 846) enrolled in a general education course were randomly assigned to either an arousal (experimental) or no-arousal (control) group. The experimental group was exposed to a topic-relevant, 90-second external stimulus (a technique used to elevate arousal and focus attention). The control group listened to the…

This study explores how a group of learners of English as a second language (ESL) criticize in everyday situations compared to the native speaker (NS) with a view to expanding the range of speech acts under inquiry in the interlanguage pragmatics (ILP) literature. Data were collected from five NSs of New Zealand English and five intermediate…