Humans are sensitive to the properties of individual items, and exemplar models are useful for capturing this sensitivity. I am a proponent of an extension of exemplar-based architectures that I briefly describe. However, exemplar models are very shallow architectures in which it is necessary to stipulate a set of primitive elements that make up…

This dissertation will focus on the processing and learning of abstract, phrasal argument structure constructions. Chapter 1 provides the theoretical framework for abstract constructions, and illustrates the importance of such representations in speakers' linguistic knowledge. Chapter 2 reviews the evidence for meaning being associated with…

Discusses how people bridge chasms of thought with insubstantial but named fictions to make it possible to cross them in imagination. (HOD)

A discourse analysis of sixty French children aged ten to twelve from two socioeconomic groups. The object of the study was to describe the syntactic-semantic functioning of their language in an "abstract" situation and to determine the degree of influence of socio-cultural factors. (Text is in French.) (AMH)

This ten chapter book is designed to provide high school students with an understanding of basic communication processes. The first five chapters include discussions of language development, function, and acquisition in relation to both human and non-human communication. The sixth chapter contains specimen linguistic analyses of speech and…

In this seventh-grade language unit, the study of semantics is introduced by an examination of the relationships between words and their referents, particularly in terms of changes of meaning and degrees of abstraction. Classroom activities are suggested to help students become aware of "language liveliness" and the processes of…

The study examined the relation of language use and logical thought to social experience with both age and class held constant. The primary assumptions under study were: that the logic of symbolic grouping was highly sensitive to a child's experience with the objects to which that logic was applied; that the existence of diglossia in a bilingual…

Analysis of approximately 5,000 words and phrases of the "hard core poor" is the basis of an attempt to develop a taxonomy of their language usage. The authors examine the problem of culture differences from mainstream society. "This approach assumes that basic beliefs about relevant social reality will be reflected in a group's choice of rules…