What is a word association experiment?

● What's the first word to come into your head when you see:

What is a word association experiment? ● What's the first word to come into your head when you see: cracker

What is a word association experiment? ● What's the first word to come into your head when you see: Roger

What is a word association experiment? ● What's the first word to come into your head when you see: Piruet

What is a word association experiment? ● What's the first word to come into your head when you see: filthy

What is a word association experiment? ● What's the first word to come into your head when you see: flaming

What is a word association experiment? ● What's the first word to come into your head when you see: staunch

What is a word association experiment? ● What's the first word to come into your head when you see: Molly

What is a word association experiment? ● What does this say about the mental lexicon?

What is a word association experiment? ● What does this say about the mental lexicon? – Words have connections with other words – The connections are based on belonging to a similar semantic field

What is a word association experiment? ● What are the limitations of this experiment?

What is a word association experiment? ● What are the limitations of this experiment? – only one connected words identified – people communicate with more than one word

What is a word association experiment? ● What are the limitations of this experiment? – only one connected words identified – people communicate with more than one word context influences it

What is a word association experiment? ● What are the limitations of this experiment? – only one connected words identified – people communicate with more than one word context influences it tire, jack, and ________

What is a word association experiment? ● What are the limitations of this experiment? – only one connected words identified – people communicate with more than one word context influences it queen, jack, and ________

What is a word association experiment? ● What are the limitations of this experiment? – only one connected words identified – people communicate with more than one word context influences it Jack and the ________

What is a word association experiment? ● What are the limitations of this experiment? – only one connected words identified – people communicate with more than one word context influences it Very handy, a jack ________

What is a word association experiment? ● What are the limitations of this experiment? – only one connected words identified – people communicate with more than one word context influences it Very stupid, a jack ________

Answers in word association involve: ● Coordination – Words on the same level red, green, blue flounder, herring, guppy January, February sun, moon, stars – Opposites high, low dark, light round, flat

Answers in word association involve: ● Collocation – Words that appear together frequently rock, roll filthy lucre surf, sand hoity toidy razor blade hot, sweat

Answers in word association involve: ● Collocation – Words that appear together frequently flaming liberal/conservative staunch Catholic/Muslim active Baptist/Mormon

Answers in word association involve: ● Superordinate (hypernyms) – Name of category the word falls under sandwich > food soccer > sport nurse > profession

Answers in word association involve: ● Synonymy – Word with same meaning eat > ingest fall > trip fall > autumn angry > mad

What kinds of associations are there? ● Type of semantic relationships – Coordination (things at same level) – Superordination (hypernyms) (Things at higher level) – Hyponyms (things at a lower level) – Meronyms (parts of the thing)

What kinds of associations are there? ● Example: Chair – dresser and table are coordinates (things at same level) – furniture is a superordinate (hypernyms) (Things at higher level) – rocker is a hyponym (things at a lower level) – leg and cushion are meronyms (parts of the thing)

What kinds of associations are there? ● Visuwords Visuwords – train, evil, crack, jack ● WordNet WordNet – tree, Mormon

Evidence that words in same semantic field stored together ● Similar places in brain light up when people activate – tools – fruit – animals

Evidence that words in same semantic field stored together ● Similar places in brain light up when people activate – tools – fruit – animals ● Aphasics have trouble with certain semantic fields, but not others – clothes – kitchen utensils

No such thing as synonymy ● COCA COCA ● small tiny ● boy kid ● steal rob

Collocations ● Search for surrounding words Search for surrounding words ● go + adjective ● come + adjective ● liberal conservative

Construction Grammar ● Instead of building sentences with words we have prefabs we use – Where's _________ – VERB one's way through _______ She's working her way through school Bob made his way through the crowd I painted my way through college

Construction Grammar ● Instead of building sentences with words we have prefabs we use – X causes Y to receive Z Bob gave Carol a ring Cindy gave him a bad time – X intends Y to receive Z Bob gave a ring to Carol

Construction Grammar ● Instead of building sentences with words we have prefabs we use – X causes Y to receive Z Bob gave Carol a ring Cindy gave him a bad time – X intends Y to receive Z Bob gave a ring to Carol *Cindy gave a bad time to him – 9Z must be concrete not abstract)

Construction Grammar ● Certain words mean motion – expel, push, drag, haul The principal expelled them from school They pushed the chair off the balcony They hauled the gear up the mountain – Construction: X VERB Y (locative expression)

Construction Grammar ● Construction: X VERB Y (locative expression) – This gets extended to verbs without a movement meaning: laugh, smoke, sneeze Bob laughed Sally out of the room He sneezed the paper off the table He smoked them out of the meeting

Construction Grammar ● Construction: to VERB out of house and home – implies expulsion by some kind of excess We'll all be taxed out of house and home His son ate them out of house and home She smoked him out of house and home

Construction Grammar ● Construction: VERB X adjective – He smashed the box flat – The sergeant marched the recruits sick – He drives me mad

Construction Grammar ● Set constructions become idioms – to drive one crazy – sick in the head – safe and sound – larger than life – scratch the surface – get the hang of it – eat like a pig