NORMS OF SEQUENTIAL ASSOCIATIVE DEPENDENCIES IN ACTIVE DECLARATIVE SENTENCES

THIS IS AN EXTENSION OF A PSYCHOLINGUISTIC STUDY BEGUN IN 1966 INVOLVING WORD ASSOCIATION NORMS. THE FIRST EXPERIMENT ANALYZED IN TERMS OF FREQUENCY TABLES VERB AND OBJECT RESPONSES TO SUBJECT-NOUNS IN A DECLARATIVE SENTENCE FRAME, WITH THE LIMITATION THAT IT WAS DIFFICULT TO DETERMINE WHICH OBJECTS WERE ASSOCIATED WITH WHICH VERBS. THIS SECOND STUDY, ALSO USING THE SIMPLE DECLARATIVE SENTENCE FRAME, WAS DESIGNED TO GENERATE A DISTRIBUTION OF SENTENCES WITH VARYING WORD-TO-WORD CONSTRAINTS. RESULTS GIVEN IN THIS REPORT ARE FOR RESPONSES TO 52 ANIMATE NOUNS PRESENTED TO 120 MALE AND FEMALE UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS. THEY WERE INSTRUCTED TO COMPLETE A SENTENCE FRAME CONTAINING TWO ARTICLES AND BLANK SPACES FOR A VERB AND ANOTHER NOUN. EXTENSIVE FREQUENCY TABLES ARE GIVEN, INDICATING THE OBJECT-NOUNS MOST FREQUENTLY ASSOCIATED WITH EACH VERB. ALL DATA IN THE REPORT ARE THE OUTPUT OF A PROGRAM WRITTEN ON THE PDP-4 COMPUTER. THIS RESEARCH REPORT IS ONE OF SEVERAL WHICH HAVE BEEN SUBMITTED TO THE OFFICE OF EDUCATION AS "STUDIES IN LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGE BEHAVIOR, PROGRESS REPORT V," SEPTEMBER 1, 1967. (FB)