Grammaticalization is often regarded in the literature as a distinct process requiring explanatory machinery unique to its own domain. Argues, on the contrary, that grammaticalization is simply a cover term for certain syntactic, semantic, and phonetic changes, all of which apply independently of each other. (Author/VWL)

Evaluates the current state of natural language processing information retrieval systems from the user's point of view, focusing on the structure and components of the systems' help mechanisms. Topics include user/system interaction; semantic parsing; syntactic parsing; semantic mapping; and concept matching. (Author/LRW)

Two studies addressed whether preschoolers consider speakers' knowledge states when establishing initial word-referent links. Children showed better learning from a speaker knowledgeable of novel words' referents than from an ignorant speaker. Four-year-olds, but not 3-year-olds, learned words better when speaker said the object was made by…

Results of the Aging Semantic Differential completed by 142 undergraduates showed significant attitude differences related to descriptions of "old,""elderly," and "ages 70-85." Attitudes were significantly more positive regarding the 70-85 category. Results suggest that using stereotypical language during the research process creates bias in…

This study investigated the relative importance of semantic, grammatical, phonological, and rapid naming abilities in predicting word identification skills in 200 children (grades 1-6) using correlation, factor analysis, multiple regression, and predictive outcome analysis techniques. Composite measures of these abilities correlated significantly…

Preschool children were assessed on phonological awareness tasks, including rhyme and alliteration matching tasks with distractor items that were either semantically or phonologically related to the target. In both tasks, children found the distractors or the unrelated distractors. Results emphasize the importance of controlling for global…

Presents psycholinguistic evidence from adult speakers of English, Norwegian, and Dutch, and from child speakers of Dutch and Norwegian that supports Dalrymple's (1995) proposal that the reciprocal pronoun has a flexible semantic value defining a range of readings of varying logical strength and that a semantic principle determines the reading…

Examines NP-type nouns, nominals that alternate between count noun and noun phrase constructions with resulting changes in their semantic interpretation. (Author/VWL)

Argues that the lexical production system takes a compositional approach to processing morphologically complex forms in cases of productive word formation even if the semantics of the word cannot be derived formally from the meaning of its constituents. Evidence is presented from a case of acquired naming impairment in a patient whose ability to…

Studies intrasentential codeswitching (CS) phenomena at two levels of abstraction: the level of lexical-conceptual structure and the level of predicate-argument structure. Argues that lemma congruence checking between languages involved in intrasentential CS at these two levels is a fundamental organizing principle governing intrasentential CS…

Introduces this issue of the journal, summarizing current issues in spoken word recognition. Argues a full understanding of the process of lexical access during speech comprehension will depend on resolving several issues: what is the form of the representations used for lexical access; how is phonological information coded in the mental lexicon;…

Presents a new dimension of lexical variation--contextual distinctiveness. CD is a corpus-derived summary measure of the frequency distribution of the contexts in which a word occurs, and it is naturally compatible with contextual theories of semantic representation and meaning. An experiment shows that CD is a better predictor of lexical decision…

Qualitative research is inquiry aimed at describing and clarifying human experience as it appears in people's lives. Researchers using qualitative methods gather data that serve as evidence for their distilled descriptions. Qualitative data are gathered primarily in the form of spoken or written language rather than in the form of numbers.…

The goal of this special issue on Interfaces is to explore the division of labor between pragmatics and grammar. In the introductory paper a system of different modules and interface mappings has been presented. Some suggestions were made where the job of the acquisition process is. It was posed that most, if not all, acquisition is in the mapping…

The hypothesis that Alzheimer's disease (AD) degrades semantic representations predicts that AD qualitatively alters spontaneous thoughts. In two experiments contrasting free associations to words with strong (e.g., "bride-groom") versus weak (e.g., "body-leg") associates participants with AD produced less common responses (e.g., "bride-pretty")…