High Frequency Verbs Research Articles

Collocations with High Frequency Verbs in Learner English: Lithuanian Learners vs Native Speakers

Analysis of learner language, or interlanguage, produced by learners of different mother tongues has many implications for the theory and practice of teaching/learning English as a foreign language (EFL). The aim of the present research is to analyse collocational competence, of Lithuanian learners of English. The study was designed as a pilot study to analyse the learners’ ability to produce collocations with high-frequency verbs, i.e. HAVE, DO, MAKE, TAKE and GIVE, and compare it with data from a comparable corpus of native speakers of English. It is assumed here that similar studies can shed light on the specific difficulties that Lithuanian learners of English face and contribute to the enhancement of teaching and learning outcomes. [...]

French children's use and correction of weird word orders: A constructivist account

Using the weird word order methodology (Akhtar, 1999), we investigated children's understanding of SVO word order in French, a language with less consistent argument ordering patterns than English. One hundred and twelve French children (ages 2; 10 and 3; 9) heard either high or low frequency verbs modelled in either SOV or VSO order (both ungrammatical). Results showed that: (1) children were more likely to adopt a weird word order if they heard lower frequency verbs, suggesting gradual learning; (2) children in the high frequency conditions tended to correct the ungrammatical model they heard to the closest grammatical alternative, suggesting different models activated different grammatical schemas; and (3) children were less likely to express the object of a transitive verb than were English children in an equivalent study, suggesting object expression is more difficult to master in French, perhaps because of its inconsistency in the input. These findings are discussed in the context of a usage-based model of language acquisition.

The effect of verb semantic class and verb frequency (entrenchment) on children’s and adults’ graded judgements of argument-structure overgeneralization errors

Participants (aged 5–6 yrs, 9–10 yrs and adults) rated (using a five-point scale) grammatical (intransitive) and overgeneralized (transitive causative) 1 Throughout this paper, the term “intransitive” (whether referring to a verb or construction) refers only to non-causative intransitives – sometimes termed “inchoative intransitives” – (e.g., The man laughed) and not to intransitives with unspecified or unexpressed objects (e.g., The man ate). The term “transitive causative” (e.g., The sun melted the snow) is used to contrast sentences of this type with both transitive non-causatives (e.g., John saw Bill) and periphrastic causatives (e.g., The sun made the snow melt). 1 uses of a high frequency, low frequency and novel intransitive verb from each of three semantic classes [Pinker, S. (1989a). Learnability and cognition: the acquisition of argument structure. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press]: “directed motion” ( fall, tumble), “going out of existence” ( disappear, vanish) and “semivoluntary expression of emotion” ( laugh, giggle). In support of Pinker’s semantic verb class hypothesis, participants’ preference for grammatical over overgeneralized uses of novel (and English) verbs increased between 5–6 yrs and 9–10 yrs, and was greatest for the latter class, which is associated with the lowest degree of direct external causation (the prototypical meaning of the transitive causative construction). In support of Braine and Brooks’s [Braine, M.D.S., & Brooks, P.J. (1995). Verb argument strucure and the problem of avoiding an overgeneral grammar. In M. Tomasello & W. E. Merriman (Eds.), Beyond names for things: Young children’s acquisition of verbs (pp. 352–376). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum] entrenchment hypothesis, all participants showed the greatest preference for grammatical over ungrammatical uses of high frequency verbs, with this preference smaller for low frequency verbs, and smaller again for novel verbs. We conclude that both the formation of semantic verb classes and entrenchment play a role in children’s retreat from argument-structure overgeneralization errors.

The role of frequency in the acquisition of English word order

Akhtar [Akhtar, N. (1999). Acquiring basic word order: Evidence for data-driven learning of syntactic structure. Journal of Child Language, 26, 339–356] taught children novel verbs in ungrammatical word orders. Her results suggested that the acquisition of canonical word order is a gradual, data-driven process. The current study adapted this methodology, using English verbs of different frequencies, to test whether children's use of word order as a grammatical marker depends upon the frequency of the lexical items being ordered. Ninety-six children in two age groups (2;9 and 3;9) heard either high frequency, medium frequency or low frequency verbs that were modeled in SOV order. Children aged 2;9 who heard low frequency verbs were significantly more likely to adopt the weird word order than those who heard higher frequency verbs. Children aged 3;9 preferred to use SVO order regardless of verb frequency. Furthermore, the younger children reverted to English word order using more arguments as verb frequency increased and used more pronouns than their older counterparts. This suggests that the ability to use English word order develops from lexically specific schemas formed around frequent, distributionally regular items (e.g. verbs, pronouns) into more abstract, productive schemas as experience of the language is accrued.

The role of entrenchment in children’s and adults’ performance on grammaticality judgment tasks

Between the ages of 3 and 7 years, children have been observed to produce verb argument structure overgeneralization errors (e.g., Don’t giggle me; Bowerman, 1982, 1988; Pinker, 1989). A number of recent studies have begun to find evidence that the precise distributional properties of the input may provide an important part of the explanation for why children retreat from overgeneralization errors (Brooks & Tomasello, 1999; Brooks, Tomasello, Dodson, & Lewis, 1999). The current study evaluates the role of entrenchment (Braine & Brooks, 1995) in constraining argument structure overgeneralization errors using a grammaticality judgment task. The 5-year-olds, 8-year-olds, and adults were presented with examples of argument structure errors containing high and low frequency verbs matched for semantic class and asked to indicate whether, or the extent to which they found the sentences to be grammatical. The data show that across all groups, sentences with argument structure errors containing low frequency verbs were judged to be significantly more grammatical than those containing high frequency verbs. These findings provide further support for the entrenchment hypothesis and suggest that verb frequency plays an important and continuing role in determining a speaker’s choice of verb argument structure.

The grammatical and lexical patterning of MAKE in native and non-native student writing

This article investigates EFL learner use of high frequency verbs, and in particular use of the verb MAKE, a major representative of this group. The main questions addressed are: do learners tend to over- or underuse these verbs? Are high-frequency verbs error-prone or safe? What part does transfer play in misuse of these verbs? To answer these questions, authentic learner data has been compared with native speaker data using computerized corpora and linguistic software tools to speed up the initial stage of the linguistic analysis. The article focuses on what proves to be the two most distinctive uses of MAKE, viz. the delexical and causative uses. Results show that EFL learners, even at an advanced proficiency level, have great difficulty with a high frequency verb such as MAKE. They also demonstrate that some of these problems are shared by the two groups of learners under consideration (Swedish- and French-speaking learners) while others seem to be L1-related. In the conclusion, the pedagogical implications of the study are discussed and suggestions made for using concordance-based exercises as a way of raising learners' awareness of the complexity of high-frequency verbs.

High-frequency verbs and verb diversity in the spontaneous speech of school-age children with specific language impairment

Low verb diversity and heavy reliance on a small set of high-frequency 'general all purpose (GAP)' verbs have been reported to characterize specific language impairment (SLI) in preschool children. However, discrepancies exist about the severity of this deficit, particularly in whether these children's verb diversity is commensurate with their MLU level and whether verb diversity is more severely affected than general lexical diversity. Conflicting findings have been reported regarding the use of GAP verbs. This relatively large (n = 100) study extended the investigation of lexical diversity and high-frequency verb use to school-age children with SLI and NL peers and examined a particular hypothesis concerning the role of high-frequency verbs in language development. No differences were found between groups in general lexical diversity or verb diversity in samples of a set number of tokens. The results did not suggest that verb diversity constitutes an area of specific deficit in spontaneous production for children with SLI. SLI and NL groups were indistinguishable in high-frequency verb use. Extensive use of high-frequency verbs by both groups indicates that their use is part of normal development. Results are reported that support the hypothesis that high-frequency verbs act as prototypes for major meaning categories, permitting semantic and syntactic simplification with minimal losses in information value.

Stutterers' vocal reaction times to unilaterally presented high and low frequency verbs.

The current study investigated vocal reaction times of 11 stuttering participants to verbs with high and low frequencies of occurrence when these verbs were unilaterally visually presented. No significant main effects or interactions between stimuli and visual-half field were found. Reaction times were 16 msec. faster after right visual field presentations and the Pearson correlation coefficient between visual fields .71 (p=.02). These results were interpreted as suggesting that the left hemisphere was dominant for processing the current lexical items, findings which parallel those for normal speakers.

Verb use by language-impaired and normally developing children

This study examined verb use in a group of preschool-age children with language impairments and two control groups of normally developing children. The specific questions of the study involved the diversity of the language-impaired children's verb lexicons relative to their age- and language-matched counterparts, and the presence of similar frequently used, multipurpose verb forms in both samples. Analysis of transcript data revealed that while language-impaired youngsters relied on a less diverse main verb lexicon than both their age- and language-matched peers, they used a similar set of high frequency verbs.

Hemispheric specialization for word classes with visual presentations and lexical decision task

In the present paper we study the possible RH capabilities for the processing of adjectives and verbs of high frequency and medium imagery using a lexical decision task and a horizontal display. In the analysis of both RTs and mean errors, a RVF advantage is obtained. The interaction VF × Word Class did not reach significance. Therefore, we did not find evidence of differences in the visual-field effect for any syntactic class. These results support a LH superiority for the processing of both adjectives and verbs. For the nonword conditions (pseudoverbs and pseudoadjectives), no visual field differences were observed in either group. Methodological aspects are also discussed.

Vocal reaction times to tachistoscopically presented high- and low-frequency verbs: some evidence for selective minor hemisphere linguistic analysis.

The current study investigated the capacity of the right hemisphere to process verbs using a paradigm proven reliable for predicting differential, minor hemisphere lexical analysis in the normal, intact brain. Vocal reaction times of normal subjects were measured to unilaterally presented verbs of high and of low frequency. A significant interaction was noted between the stimulus items and visual fields. Post hoc tests showed that vocal reaction times to verbs of high frequency were significantly faster following right visual-field presentations (right hemisphere). No significant differences in vocal reaction time occurred between the two visual fields for the verbs of low frequency. Also, significant differences were observed between the two types of verbs following left visual-field presentation but not the right. These results were interpreted to suggest that right-hemispheric analysis was restricted to the verbs of high frequency in the presence of a dominant left hemisphere.

Construction of matched verbal and design continuous paired associate tests.

We developed verbal and figural continuous paired associate tests (CPAT) that are matched on internal consistency and on the distributional properties of mean item difficulty, variance, and skewness. The Verbal CPAT is composed of high frequency nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Selection of the designs was guided by literature on the effects of right-hemisphere damage on memory for designs. One hundred subjects were given 80 items from the verbal CPAT and 80 items from the designs CPAT. Twenty subjects at these five ranges of Wechsler Memory Quotient were evaluated: less than or equal to 79, 80-89, 90-99, 100-109, greater than or equal to 109. The final 40-item version of the Verbal CPAT had a mean of 26.72, a SD of 7.03, and an alpha of .859. The Designs CPAT had a mean of 26.42, a SD of 7.75, and an alpha of .886. Neither test was significantly skewed. These matched tests should be useful in making inferences about differences between verbal and figural memory that are not confounded with the problem of differential test sensitivity.

Falsification of the hypothesis that word frequency is a unified variable in sentence processing

In this study the relationship of word frequency to sentential processing complexity was investigated. Thirty-two S s listened to sentences and pushed a button in response to a word beginning with a preestablished phoneme (target words), and reaction time was taken as an index of local processing difficulty. Lexical items immediately preceding the target words were manipulated: they were either high or low frequency adjectives, nouns, or verbs. It was found that only low frequency adjectives produced longer RTs. No effect of word frequency for nouns or verbs was observed.