Discusses changes in the location and provision of information services that have resulted from online technologies, particularly the World Wide Web. Highlights include knowledge management in digital libraries; the importance of research on information technology and digital libraries; semantic indexes; concept switching; information analysis;…

Examines research on learning related vocabulary, such as lexical sets, a unit of vocabulary or specific items sharing certain formal or semantic features. This research shows that learning related words at the same time makes learning them more difficult and suggests that this difficulty can be avoided if related words are learned separately.…

Reports two sets of lexical priming experiments in which the morphological, semantic, and orthographic relationships between primes and targets are varied in three SOA conditions. Results showed that morphological structure plays a significant role in early visual recognition of English words that is independent of both semantic and orthographic…

Discusses the nature of information measuring its distance from the perfect theory or from the right answer to the information seeking question that led to it. The measures here are provided by the Tichy-Hilpinen-Oddie-Niiniluoto-likeness measures introduced in the context of the philosophical problem of verisimilitude. (JAK)

Presents an approach for dynamic database integration and query processing in the absence of information about attribute correspondences and global IDs. Defines different types of equivalence conditions for the construction of global IDs. Proposes a strategy based on ranked role-sets that makes use of an automated semantic integration procedure…

Rejects the "etymological fallacy" theory, which seeks to minimize the role of etymology in the study of semantics, arguing that etymology represents a perfectly coherent philosophy of language, given that linguistic change is a legitimate source of anxiety for any culture founded on laws or sacred texts, whether oral or written. (MSE)

Examined an aspect of modality in the Spanish spoken in the Houston, Texas community. Demonstrates that semantic-pragmatic variation and change are taking place and affecting the forms of "deber (de) and "tener que" in their deontic and epistemic modes. Interviewed Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in Spanish. Analyses show an…

Analyzes features of the Swedish language from the viewpoint of mono-and cross-language information retrieval. Results of a comparative study that tested the degree of lexical ambiguity in Swedish, Finnish, and English suggest that part-of-speech tagging might be useful in Swedish information retrieval due to the high frequency of homographic…

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…