Ling 107

Mental Lexicon Assignment

Due: January 26th

Calculate the size of your mental lexicon. Follow the procedures we discussed in class, but be sure to document the procedures you use and the assumptions you make. In your write up, you should:

1. Name the dictionary you used and state how many entries it contains. (If your dictionary does not say how many words it contains, show how you estimated the number of words in it.)

2. Discuss the criteria you used to distinguish between the base vocabulary and inflected or derived forms.

3. Discuss the procedure you used to estimate the proportion of base vocabulary entries to the total number of entries in the dictionary you used.

4. Discuss the sampling procedure you used to estimate the size of your recognition vocabulary.

5. Show how you calculated the size of your base recognition vocabulary as well as the size of your total recognition vocabulary.

Extra Credit

Follow the same procedures for a second dictionary and discuss the factors responsible for any significant differences in your two estimates.