Two experiments using five lists of words were conducted to explore the effects of the concreteness or abstractness of words on their tachistoscopic recognition. (Editor)

Trace strength was examined as a function of single and spaced-multiple encodings within and across the orthographic, acoustic, and semantic domains. Recall results revealed that multiple encodings yielded additive or greater than additive retention effects while the recognition accuracy results revealed additive or less than additive effects.…

Helpful factors in acquiring passive vocabulary are: word-building laws, international words, and genetic similarities. Another is "meaning variants" of the foreign words, derived by processes analogous to those of the native tongue. This supports the validity of reading knowledge as an early goal. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

To investigate the relationship between the retrieval mechanism and the level of question elaboration, this study divided 100 questions from the cystic fibrosis database into five conceptual categories based on their semantic representations. Two retrieval methods were chosen to investigate potential differences in outcomes across conceptual…

Recipes exhibit a phenomenon nonexistent in other commonly studied varieties, (for example, conversational discourse), namely, zero anaphors as direct objects. This article examines this phenomenon and explores its consequences for linguistic theory. Results reveal that stylistic, semantic, and discourse factors are the most important in the…

Examines "it"-clefts and "wh"-clefts in English and their Chinese equivalents in a universal, functional perspective that consists of assigning "participant roles" in processing a clause. The analysis shows that a functionally-oriented and semantically-motivated approach to the focusing constructions provides greater insight into the discourse…

Presents a contrastive study of connectives such as "in case that,""provided that," and "unless" focusing on the semantic properties of these items and their semantic and pragmatic equivalence across English and Italian. The article emphasizes that in its approach, pragmatic equivalence is strictly related to semantic…

Describes the cross-modal semantic priming paradigm, including its underlying rationale and the different tasks with which it is combined. Introduces the type of stimuli used and the dependent and independent variables typically manipulated; discusses the paradigm's main advantages and drawbacks; and considers its most important areas of…

Offers resolutions to the paradox of infants' ability to abstract patterns over specific items and toddlers' lack of ability to generalize patterns over specific English words/constructions. Argues that contradictions are rooted in differing methodologies and stimuli content. Suggests that the patterns infants extract from linguistic input are not…

Concerned the effects of questions about word meaning during an immediate lexical learning task. English-speaking learners of Spanish as a second language attempted to learn 24 new Spanish words while viewing word-picture pairs. Results indicated significantly greater cued-recall scores in the no questions condition than in the questions…

Examines Japanese equivalents of the six mental predicates defined as semantic universals in Natural Semantic Metalanguage theory, with special attention to syntax and semantics of complementation types. It is shown that each primitive predicate has a specific set of syntactic frames for expressing primitive meaning and that extended meanings that…

Explores the combinatorial possibilities of semantic primitives of time and space in French, as defined in the theory of Natural Semantic Metalanguage. Highlights the need for new ways to express the allolexical relationship in some combinations, particularly those expressing "when/time." (Author/MSE)

Extends the study of children's knowledge of Binding Condition B to a construction containing pronouns embedded in conjoined noun phrases. The study included pronouns bound by a quantifier. Results support the argument that anaphoric relations are constrained by more than one module of grammar. (12 references) (Author/CK)

This article discusses the crucial role that working memory (WM) plays in learning a second language and analyzes cross-linguistic differences in digit span. It argues that word span and semantic span should be considered in WM analysis. A semantic system is proposed in the WM model for language. (Contains references.) (Author/CR)

Compares the implied ontological frameworks of the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting and the World Wide Web Consortium's Semantic Web. Discusses current search engine technology, semantic markup, indexing principles of special libraries and online databases, and componentization and the distinction between data and…