Lexical Retrieval Processes:Semantic Field Effects
Garrett, 1992a
Anna Tinnemore
April 26, 2006
Objective
Examine some patterns of
“normal word substitution errors” Support claims for semantic fields
“… to find distributional patterns that provide evidence for the structure of the general cognitive and linguistic processes that underlie language production”
Data
Errors made by normal speakers in the course of regular conversation
Collection of >12,000 speech errors using diary method (much smaller segment used)
Shattuck and Garrett
Multiple Location Error Examples
“a sot hoddering iron”
(hot soddering)
“It just sounded to start”
(started to sound)
“We completely forgot to add the list to the milk”
(milk to the list)
Single Location Error Examples
“It looks as though you are making considerable process.”
(progress)
“…Looking at deep freeze structure…”
(phrase)
Meaning-based Lexical Errors
“He rode his bike to school tomorrow.”
(yesterday)
“What I’ve done here is torn together three . . . uh, torn apart three issues that . . . .”
Notice:
Important distinction between
form-mediated errors (phonological-ish)
and
meaning-mediated errors
(concept mix-ups)
Movement Errors
Reveal a distinction between abstract logical and syntactic processes
and
surface phrasal structure processes
in sentence processing
These two levels correspond directly with two major types of lexical processing!
A conceptually driven process
A form-driven process
Lots of types of errors
Use only those errors with no apparent discourse or environmental source
(best candidates for errors in lexical retrieval)
These can be divided into two groups –you guessed it! - form-based and concept-based
Form-Related
“You’ll earn her eternal grapefruit.”
(gratitude)
“I gave you my undevoted attention.”
(undivided)
Meaning Related
“The picture on the front was the whale from Jaws.”
(shark)
“Ask me whether you think it’ll do the job.”
(tell)
Semantic Constraints on Errors
Substantial proportion of word-substitution errors involving meaning-related pairs can be grouped into natural categories!
Semantic Fields
The body part field
Subfields: head, torso, and limb
Semantic Fields
Strong constraints within the body-part field (28 in / 4 out)
Exceptions plausibly explained as actually form-based errors
Ex: soldier/shoulder
Subfields too! (22 in / 6 cross)
Interesting Notes:
Top three free-associates
13 yes / 15 no
No parallels between word frequency and word substitution errors
More Interesting Notes:
No lexically mediated substitution pairs
(guns/arms, coconut/palm, inch/foot)
From conceptual space to lemmas
Comprehension: multiple activation of lexical interpretations of phonological input (Swinney, and others)
Therefore:
It is reasonable to look for methods/processes that map from conceptual space to lemmas.
Substitution pairs
Animals(dog/cat, cat/dog, lion/tiger, whale/shark, squirrel/turtle)
Colors(pink/green, yellow/red, red/yellow, blue/black)
Temporals(seconds/minutes, minute/second, year/week, day/year)
Do you know the difference?Now, can you say it?
Field integrity is strong, but not all fields
are of equal strength
Something more general than lexical relatedness – semantic relatedness?
(foot/wheel, speed/temperature, year/yard)
Effects on grammatical classes
Nouns – conceptual oppositionsContradictories
(end/beginning, top/bottom)
Functional Contrasts
(husband/wife, answer/question)
(number names, letter names, proper names)
Effects on Grammatical Classes
Adjectives – antonymy vs. synonymy
Antonyms Win!!
but not just any antonyms
only the base-form polar opposites
Gross, Fisher, and Miller (1989)Semantic Space for Adjectives
Effects on Grammatical Classes
Verbs
very similar to adjectives with strong tendency toward “opposites” (30/48)
(go/come, start/stop, remember/forget, ask/tell, love/hate, heard/said)
-- (looks/sounds, drink/eat)
Topic switch
BLEND ERRORS
in word substitution the competition is won by the wrong word,
in blending they both win, and a phonetic compromise is reached!
Examples
stummy
(tummy/ stomach) perple
(person/people) slickery
(slick/slippery) evoid
(evade/avoid) kwierd
(queer/weird)
editated
(edited/annotated) everybun
(everyone/everybody) dentars
(dentals/velars) smever
(smart/clever) corallel
(corollary/parallel)
What?
SYNONYMY not
ANTONYMY
Conclusions
If substitutions are errors in the mapping between concepts and lemmas
If blends are the result of multiple lemma activations for one concept
They are different and the same!
Early stages of mapping from concept to lemma representation
Conclusions:
There are semantic field constraints.
There may be some feature of the mechanism we use that makes antonym relations prevalent in word substitution errors across grammatical classes
Further questions
How does the relationship between concept and lemma representations control lexical retrieval?
Are lemmas in semantic fields? Or are conceptual representations what
cause these field effects?
Your questions
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‘Lyssa, cute and scruffy
More examples
WASP - white Anglo-Saxon prostitute
“I thought Westerns were where people rode horses instead of cows.”
“I was so tired I couldn’t get off my foot.”
“Rewrite your thesis to your heart’s dissent.”
“I just banged my finger with a hanger.”
transpised
(transposed/transcribed) stougher
(stiffer/tougher) swifting
(shifting/switching) dreeze
(draft/breeze) grastly
(grizzly/ghastly)
More fun
“When you apply the underlying string to the P-rule…”
“I’m going to mainly point about …”
(I’m going to talk about three main points)
“When you key in your KIN number, ah PIN number…”
“Use e-mail to handle it in”“Just buy a fifty pound dog of
bag food”
“Say the languages from 1 to 10 in your native language.”
“I think Your Honor has really put the finger on it” (your finger)
“There’s a branch falling on the tree” (roof)
“I have a tongue on my sore”
“ “John shaves John” is not ambigual”