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Grammatical properties of sentences as a basis for concept formation
W J Baker1, G D Prideaux, B L Derwing
1Department of Linguistics, The University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Journal of Psycholinguistic Research
|November 8, 2013
Summary
High school students learned sentence patterns based on voice, mood, and modality. However, semantic meaning, not just syntax, influenced their categorization and errors.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Linguistics
- Educational Psychology
Background:
- Understanding how individuals form concepts is crucial in cognitive psychology.
- Syntactic structures in language play a significant role in cognitive processing.
- Previous research has explored concept formation with varying stimuli.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate concept formation in relation to syntactic sentence patterns.
- To determine if semantic content or syntactic structure drives categorization.
- To analyze errors in learning sentence types to understand cognitive responses.
Main Methods:
- A computer-controlled experiment involving 32 senior high school student volunteers.
- Utilized eight distinct syntactic patterns combining voice, mood, and modality.
- Subjects categorized sentences based on learned patterns.
Main Results:
- Participants successfully categorized sentences based on syntactic types.
- Error analysis revealed that semantic significance, not just pattern differences, affected responses.
- Learning was influenced by the meaning conveyed by sentence structures.
Conclusions:
- Learners respond to the semantic implications of syntactic structures.
- Findings have implications for grammatical theory and psychological research interpretation.
- Cognitive concept formation is influenced by both form and meaning.
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