The lexico-semantic representation of words in the mental lexicon = De lexico-semantische representatie van woorden in het mentale lexicon

Abstract

Speech production is a core component of human communication, allowing

individuals to express meaning and engage with others seamlessly. This thesis

explores the mechanisms underlying language production in native Mandarin

Chinese, with a particular focus on semantic and lexico-syntactic features involved in word production. The investigation is structured around three key studies. First, a picture-word interference (PWI) experiment examines the influence of animacy—a semantic feature—on language production. Second, another PWI study investigates how the number of overlapping semantic features affects word retrieval. Third, the thesis explores the role of classifier distribution similarity in word production. These questions are addressed through a combination of corpus analysis, behavioral experiments, and electroencephalography (EEG) measurements, providing a multifaceted view of language production. The thesis also uses state-of-theart statistical methodologies to analyze large-scale linguistic, behavioural, and electrophysiological data, contributing to a comprehensive understanding of the cognitive processes involved in Mandarin Chinese word production.