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”