Are word meanings corresponding to different grammatical categories organised differently within lexical semantic memory?

Joanne Arciuli, Linda Cupples, Gabriella Vigliocco

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    We report on two experiments that examined lexical semantic memory. Experiment 1 included semantically related word-pairs (similarity of meaning) and unrelated word-pairs from three grammatical categories (nouns, verbs, adjectives). Experiment 2 included semantically related word-pairs (contrasting meaning) and unrelated word-pairs from the same three categories. Results of both experiments showed similar levels of semantic priming across same versus different grammatical category word-pairs (e.g., verb–verb pairs vs. verb–adjective pairs). Additional analyses of each experiment showed similar levels of priming within each of the three grammatical categories (i.e., noun–noun vs. verb–verb vs. adjective–adjective pairs). These findings suggest that there are no sharp architectural distinctions amongst words from different grammatical categories within lexical semantic memory.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)251-275
    Number of pages25
    JournalMental Lexicon
    Volume1
    Issue number2
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2006

    Keywords

    • Adjectives
    • Grammatical category
    • Lexical decision
    • Nouns
    • Semantic priming
    • Semantic relationships
    • Verbs

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