Large-scale databases of proper names |
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Authors: | Patrick Conley Curt Burgess Dotty Hage |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Psychological Sciences, Purdue University, 47907 West Lafayette, IN;(2) Lucent Technologies, Holmdel, New Jersey;(3) Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana |
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Abstract: | Few tools for research in proper names have been available—specifically, there is no large-scale corpus of proper names. Two
corpora of proper names were constructed, one based on U.S. phone book listings, the other derived from a database of Usenet
text. Name frequencies from both corpora were compared with human subjects’ reaction times (RTs) to the proper names in a
naming task. Regression analysis showed that the Usenet frequencies contributed to predictions of human RT, whereas phone
book frequencies did not. In addition, semantic neighborhood density measures derived from the HAL corpus were compared with
the subjects’ RTs and found to be a better predictor of RT than was frequency in either corpus. These new corpora are freely
available on line for download. Potentials for these corpora range from using the names as stimuli in experiments to using
the corpus data in software applications. |
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Keywords: | |
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