Abstract
English words which are ambiguous with respect to their noun-verb part of speech were paired with nonsense words rendered unambiguous with respect to part of speech by appending suitable noun or verb endings. After PA learning trials a posttest revealed that the homograph with the same part of speech as that of its nonsense word associate tended to be more frequently elicited. This result was interpreted in terms of the operation of grammatical category as mediator. The utility of such a construct for theories of sentence generation was discussed.
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This research was supported in part by Grant OMHF 125 from the Ontario Mental Health Foundation. The authors wish to acknowledge the assistance of Dr. A. Paivio in the preparation of this manuscript.
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Pylyshyn, Z.W., Feldmar, A. Grammatical category as mediator. Psychon Sci 13, 115–116 (1968). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03342437
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03342437