A collection of utterances and written text that is compiled and estimates the frequency of which words are used (word frequency), the different meanings a words has (lexical ambiguity), and the grammatical constructions used.

Corpus 

We respond faster to words with high frequency in a language than low frequency (we will respond faster to home than hike).

Word Frequency Effect

Zipf's law describes the empirical phenomenon where the frequency of words in a corpus decays quickly, following a power law distribution. Specifically, the frequency $$n_i$$ of the $$i^{	extrm{th}}$$ most frequent word is inversely proportional to its rank, mathematically expressed as $$n_i \propto \frac{1}{i^\alpha}$$, where $$\alpha$$ is the exponent characterizing the distribution.

Zipf's Law for Word Frequencies

How often (the frequency) that a word appears in some text or speech.

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

The smallest sequence of phonemes that can be combined to form some meaning (morphemes).

Words (linguistics)

Goldstein, E. B. (2014). Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research and everyday experience. Nelson Education.


Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research and everyday experience

Stores our knowledge of words. Contains what a word means, how it sounds and how they are used in relation to other words.

Lexicon

It is easier to identify letters when they contain in a word (FORK) than when they are by themselves (K) or in a nonword (RFKO).

Word Superiority Effect

Word Frequency

A word can have multiple meanings. For example book can mean something to read or to schedule something like a hotel room.

Lexical ambiguity

Syntax is a fundamental component of a language's grammar that dictates the rules for arranging and organizing individual words into coherent, structured sentences.

Syntax

Combining groups of words into phrases. Important in determining the meaning of a sentence.

Parsing

A textual unit that is composed of one or more words, parsed together and following some syntactical rules.

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