The word frequency effect and lexical access

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Abstract

Some recent experiments suggest that only open class words show a frequency effect. Closed class items are accessed independently of their frequency. We carried out five experiments to test the validity of this hypothesis for the French language. All our results suggest that the frequency effect applies equally well to the open and closed class items.

Résumé

Des travaux récents suggèrent que l'effect de fréquence dans l'accès lexical est limité aux seuls mots à contenu (ou mots “pleins”). L'accès aux mots fonctionnels seriat indépendant de leur fréquence d'usage dans la langue. Afin de mettre à l'épreuve la validité de cette hypothèse de travail pour le français, nous avons effectué cinq expériences. Les résultats obtenus suggèrent que l'effet de fréquence est analogue pour les deux classes de mots étudiés.

Zusammenfassung

Einige jüngere Experimente zeigen, daβ nur Wörter offener Klassen eine Frequenzabhängigkeit haben. Der Zugang zu Wörtern geschlossener Klassen ist unabhängig von ihrer Häufigkeit. Wir haben 5 Experimente ausgeführt, um die Validität dieser Hypothese für die französische Sprache zu überprüfen. Alle Ergebnisse legen die Annahme nahe, daβ der Häufigkeitseffekt auf beide Klassen von Wörtern, offene und geschlossene, zutrifft.

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    The results reported in this paper were first presented at the CNRS-MIT Conference on Cognitive Psychology held at the Royaumont Abbey in France in June 1980.

    Present address: Center for Cognitive Science, MIT, Cambridge, MA, U.S.A.

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