The question of whether or not truth exists is at the center of the rationalism versus postmodern debate. Noting the difficulty of defining truth, the author uses the principles of linguistics to show that semantic skewing has resulted in the concept of truth being encoded as a noun, while it is really an attribute (true). The introduction of a…

Null direct objects provide a favourable testing ground for grammatical and performance models of argument omission. This article examines both types of models in order to determine which gives a more plausible account of the second language data. The data were collected from second language (L2) learners of Spanish by means of four oral…

Studies of copular forms are extremely relevant to issues in philosophy, psychology, and linguistics. Psychologists have recently argued that the most distinctive aspect of human language is its combinatorial nature (e.g., Gentner, 2003; Spelke, 2003). They argue that this linguistic component might be what separates human from animal cognition.…

Recent theories of morphological processing have been dominated by the notion that morphologically complex words are decomposed into their constituents on the basis of their semantic properties. In this article we argue that the weight of evidence now suggests that the recognition of morphologically complex words begins with a rapid morphemic…

Data from lesion studies suggest that the ability to perceive speech sounds, as measured by auditory comprehension tasks, is supported by temporal lobe systems in both the left and right hemisphere. For example, patients with left temporal lobe damage and auditory comprehension deficits (i.e., Wernicke's aphasics), nonetheless comprehend isolated…

Auditory word comprehension was assessed in a series of 289 acute left hemisphere stroke patients. Participants decided whether an auditorily presented word matched a picture. On different trials, words were presented with a matching picture, a semantic foil, or a phonemic foil. Participants had significantly more trouble with semantic foils…

This study examined information about adjective meanings available in adults' spoken discourse in the original 27 CHILDES corpora of typically developing English-speaking children. In order to increase the probability that adjectives would be novel to children to whom they were addressed, only "rare" adjectives were examined (those that occurred…

ONE HUNDRED CHILDREN IN EACH OF THE GRADES 2 THROUGH 6 WERE INCLUDED IN THIS STUDY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF MEANING IN CHILDREN. BASED ON STUDIES WITH ADULTS BY OSGOOD ET AL, THIS RESEARCH EXAMINED THE HYPOTHESIS THAT THE "EVALUATIVE" SYSTEM OF AFFECTIVE MEANING DEVELOPS FIRST, FOLLOWED BY INCREASED USE OF THE "POTENCY" AND…

A series of eleven concepts, eight of which were presented in a teacher training course, were rated by 252 undergraduate education majors on 15 semantic differential scales at the beginning and end of the course in an attempt to assess changes in the factor structure of semantic space and changes in the connotative meanings of the concepts. Scales…

Results indicate that the troublesome scale/concept interaction which in past studies has lowered the internal validity of many investigations can be reduced by the simple expedient of controlling for homogeneity of domain of scales and concepts employed. (Authors)

This paper is intended as an introduction to a number of problems connected with the description of algorithms and algorithmic languages, particularly the syntaxes and semantics of algorithmic languages. The terms "letter, word, alphabet" are defined and described. The concept of the algorithm is defined and the relation between the algorithm and…

Visual masking studies are reviewed, and three new masking experiments (N=41) are described. Results indicate the presence of semantic activation at short target-mask stimulus onset asynchrony levels. For performance levels close to chance, semantic information extracted from briefly presented targets may be used to detect those targets. (TJH)

Addresses concerns about the kind and nature of the language used in curricula that determines what meanings our children develop during their schooling experiences. (JOW)

Discusses the definition of collocation, demonstrates that associative word combinations do form a continuum, and proposes some parameters to help delimit the scope of collocations in everyday contemporary French. (Author/VWL)

The "but you are free to accept or to refuse" technique is a compliance procedure in which someone is approached with a request by simply telling him/her that he/she is free to accept or to refuse the request. This semantic evocation leads to increased compliance with the request. Furthermore, in most of the studies in which this technique was…