Proportion of categories of associates and structure of the mental lexicon

• Main Authors: Savić Irena, Kostić Aleksandar
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Drustvo Psihologa Srbije 2008-01-01
• Series: Psihologija
• Subjects: association; frequency; semantic memory
• Online Access: http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/0048-5705/2008/0048-57050801103S.pdf

The aim of this study was to investigate whether there is a systematic distinction between associate pairs that constitute categories of lexical relations (e.g. synonyms, antonyms, hyponyms etc.) and categories of associate pairs that have no obvious lexical relation. Proportion of categories of associates were estimated on 80 nouns from "Associative Dictionary of Serbian Language" (Piper, Dragićević & Stefanović, 2005), while frequencies of associates were estimated from "Frequency Dictionary of Contemporary Serbian Language" (Kostić, Đ., 1999). Categories of associates were divided into two groups: group of categories that included standard lexical relations and group that included idiosyncratic associates. Proportions of categories were analyzed with respect to a) frequency of a noun to which associates were generated and b) whether it was an abstract or concrete noun. Three measures were used to estimate proportion of categories: a) number of associates, b) sum frequency of associates and c) the average frequency per associate. When estimated with respect to number of associates and sum frequency of associates proportion of categories that included standard lexical relations were negligible (6% and 18%), but they become dominant when estimated with respect to the average frequency per associate. Such an outcome suggests that categories that include standard lexical relations are characterized by small number of associates (due to the fact that they are closed classes) with high frequency associates. Distinction between abstract and concrete nouns did not affect number of associates per category, which was not the case when proportions were estimated with respect to sum frequency of associates. Frequency of a noun to which associates were generated has no effect on productivity of associates, nor does it affects sum frequency per category. However, it has significant effect on the average frequency per associate within a given category.