The distribution of modifiers used by children in a word-association task

Abstract

Summary A standardized word-association test was administered to 100 Ss in each of the grades 2–6 inclusive. The responses were restricted to modifiers. All inflected parts of speech used as modifiers were excluded from the analysis. The frequency for all other unique responses was tabulated. The number of words occupying the same frequency category was determined and a distribution made. The frequency distribution was found to conform reasonably to the lognormal variant of Zipf's law. The distribution of the total occurrences comprises the first moment of the distribution of occurrence-frequency categories. The two distributions were parallel and separated by the distance demanded if the conditions of lognormality were to be met. The transformation provides an interesting description of the language behavior of the children. The estimated parameters indicated a trend toward preference in the use of qualifier types common to the majority of respondents in the later grades, i.e., stereotypy in the kinds of words used. There was a significant progressive increase over age levels in the diversity of words used and in the number of words used in the categories of lower frequency of occurrence.