This paper reports on experiments conducted to demonstrate that segmental duration in English is syntactically determined in a connected discourse. The methodology for investigation is outlined. Various factors influencing duration, such as semantics, syntax, rhythm, intonation and lexical stress are discussed. (Author/CLK)

A study was conducted in which a series of stories was used to teach six four- to five-year-olds to identify objects as "nouns," attributes of objects as "adjectives," and actions as "verbs." All the children appeared to have well-formed semantic fields for the three form classes. (Author/RM)

Features of connected discourse that have been identified by discourse analysis may be applied to the evaluation of oral proficiency in a second language. For example, in the area of semantics, a speaker's control of the cause-result relationship involves, among other things, the ability to produce the different grammatical and lexical…

Among the most important questions in psycholinguistics today are the following: By which processes does man organize and understand speech? Which are the smallest linguistic units and rules stored in the memory and used in the production and perception of speech? Are the same mechanisms at work in both cases? Discussed in this paper are…

The author endeavors to penetrate the "mists o f mentalistic myth" which enshroud the "very real, solid, and substantial results of generative or transformational linguistics." In attempting to clarify and clear up misunderstandings about theories of grammar as put forth by Chomsky (whose practice, the author feels, is "superior to his description…

The purpose of these studies was to determine if a speaker using relatively restricted language would be judged more negatively by middle class listeners than a speaker using relatively elaborated language. The subjects for the first experiment were sixty-three volunteers from an indergraduate speech class. Two versions of a message were recorded…

The objective of this paper is to combine the viewpoint of model-theoretic semantics and generative grammar, to define semantics for context-free languages, and to apply the results to some fragments of natural language. Following the introduction in the first section, Section 2 describes a simple artificial example to illustrate how a semantic…

This paper examines possible interchanges between cognitive and language processes with particular attention given to concept formation and semantic language development. Aspects of psychological and contemporary linguistic theories are discussed as a way to interrelate the functions of thought and language. The author concludes that while…

After establishing reliability for an associative verbal encoding (a/v/e) test, the relationship between children's a/v/e and their reading achievement was investigated. Two hypotheses were examined: (1) a/v/e will improve with training, and (2) associated with improved a/v/e will be concomitant improvement in reading achievement. The subjects…

Delineates and elaborates upon the underlying psychological postulates in linguistic and information-processing models, and shows the interdependence of psycholinguistics and linguistic analysis. (Text is in French.) (DB)

Semantic activities constitute a sub-class of psychological activities; from this point of departure the article discusses such topics as: idiosyncrasies, meaning and causality, internal determinants, neo-associationism, componential theories, noun- and verb-formation, sentences and propositions, semantics and cognition, mnemesic compontents, and…

Defines lexical diversity as manifest vocabulary range and lexical density as the ratio of lexical to gramatical items in a unit of discourse. Examines the effects of lexical diversity and density on listeners' evaluative judgments. (MH)

Written in Spanish, the article discusses the transformational grammar of the Spanish used by Chicanos. (NQ)

An apparatus is described which permits one experimenter to obtain high quality audio and video tape recordings of young children's behavior in cognitive-linguistic tasks while leaving the experimenter free to concentrate on working with the child. (GO)

Presents a "procedural view" of the learning mind, arguing against previous theories citing physical properties as its basis. A more process-oriented view of information processing is offered, which describes "mind" in terms of skill in manipulating symbols, and the notion of skills is shown to provide a useful framework for accounting for…