VLC001 - Demo Course

The Levelt-Maassen Experiment consists of a series of test where the movement of objects  across a screen has to be described verbatim.

The Test Scenarios
Test 1
Test 2
Test 3
Test 4

Select a test, click and say what you see.

Explanation:

In tests 1 to 3 well-known objects (rectangle and triangle) move across the screen: In sequential movements (test 1 and test 2) we favour coordinate sentence structures, in simultaneous movements (test 3) we use NP-coordination. If an object's denomination is difficult  to retrieve as in test in 4 (hexagon), we have to gain time and go back to sentence coordination, even if the movement occurs simultaneously. Thus, the retrieval of lexical items (i.e. phonetic planning) influences grammatical encoding.

Levelt W.J.M/Maassen B. 1981. Lexical Search and Order of Mention in Sentence Production. In W. Klein/W.J.M. Levelt. (eds.). Crossing the boundaries in Linguistics. Dordrecht: Reidel.

The examples illustrate the strong agglutinating character of Turkish. Furthermore, Turkish exhibits a strict SOV order irrespective of the sentence type:

Phrases	Sentences
kitap	Adam uyuyor.
kitaplar	Kadın uyudu.
büyük kitap	Adam kadını görüyor.
çok büyük kitap	... kadın adamı gördüğünde.
kitabın içinde	Adam kadına kitabı veriyor.
kitabın üzerinde