Lexical Retrieval Processes: Semantic Field Effects

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Lexical Retrieval ProcessesSemantic Field
Effects

• Garrett, 1992a
• Anna Tinnemore
• April 26, 2006

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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

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Data

• Errors made by normal speakers in the course of
  regular conversation
• Collection of gt12,000 speech errors using diary
  method (much smaller segment used)
• Shattuck and Garrett

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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)

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Single Location Error Examples

• It looks as though you are making considerable
  process.
• (progress)
• Looking at deep freeze structure
• (phrase)

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Meaning-based Lexical Errors

• He rode his bike to school tomorrow.
• (yesterday)
• What Ive done here is torn together three . . .
  uh, torn apart three issues that . . . .

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Notice

• Important distinction between
• form-mediated errors (phonological-ish)
• and
• meaning-mediated errors
• (concept mix-ups)

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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!

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• A conceptually driven process
• A form-driven process

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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

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Form-Related

• Youll earn her eternal grapefruit.
• (gratitude)
• I gave you my undevoted attention.
• (undivided)

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Meaning Related

• The picture on the front was the whale from
  Jaws.
• (shark)
• Ask me whether you think itll do the job.
• (tell)

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Semantic Constraints on Errors

• Substantial proportion of word-substitution
  errors involving meaning-related pairs can be
  grouped into natural categories!

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Semantic Fields

• The body part field
• Subfields head, torso, and limb

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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)

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Interesting Notes

• Top three free-associates
• 13 yes / 15 no
• No parallels between word frequency and word
  substitution errors

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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)

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Therefore

• It is reasonable to look for methods/processes
  that map from conceptual space to lemmas.

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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)

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Do you know the difference?Now, can you say it?
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• 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)

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Effects on grammatical classes

• Nouns conceptual oppositions
• Contradictories
• (end/beginning, top/bottom)
• Functional Contrasts
• (husband/wife, answer/question)
• (number names, letter names, proper names)

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Effects on Grammatical Classes

• Adjectives antonymy vs. synonymy
• Antonyms Win!!
• but not just any antonyms
• only the base-form polar opposites

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Gross, Fisher, and Miller (1989)Semantic Space
for Adjectives
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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)

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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!

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(No Transcript)
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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)

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What?

• SYNONYMY
• not
• ANTONYMY

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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!

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Early stages of mapping from concept to lemma
representation
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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

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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?

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Your questions

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  claim no knowledge of a subject but do not
  acknowledge any deficiencies regarding my mental
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Lyssa, cute and scruffy
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More examples

• WASP - white Anglo-Saxon prostitute
• I thought Westerns were where people rode horses
  instead of cows.
• I was so tired I couldnt get off my foot.
• Rewrite your thesis to your hearts dissent.
• I just banged my finger with a hanger.

• transpised
• (transposed/transcribed)
• stougher
• (stiffer/tougher)
• swifting
• (shifting/switching)
• dreeze
• (draft/breeze)
• grastly
• (grizzly/ghastly)

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More fun

• When you apply the underlying string to the
  P-rule
• Im going to mainly point about
• (Im 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)
• Theres a branch falling on the tree (roof)
• I have a tongue on my sore
• John shaves John is not ambigual