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ARTICLES: A. G. Wood, A. S. Harvey, R. M. Wellard, D. F. Abbott, V. Anderson, M. Kean, M. M. Saling, and G. D. Jackson Language cortex activation in normal children Neurology 2004; 63: 1035-1044 [Abstract] [Full text] [PDF]

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Reply to Stanbro

Amanda Wood, A. S. Harvey, R. M. Wellard, D. F. Abbott, V. Anderson, M. Kean, M. M. Saling, and G. D. Jackson   (25 August 2005)

Language cortex activation in normal children

Helen F. Stanbro, MPhil   (25 August 2005)

Reply to Stanbro 25 August 2005
Amanda Wood, Department of Medicine (Neurosciences) Monash Medical Centre, 5th floor, E block, 246 Clayton Road, Clayton, 3168, Victoria, Australia, A. S. Harvey, R. M. Wellard, D. F. Abbott, V. Anderson, M. Kean, M. M. Saling, and G. D. Jackson Send Correspondence to journal: Re: Reply to Stanbro Amanda.Wood{at}med.monash.edu.au Amanda Wood, et al.	We thank Ms. Stanbro for her comments. She asserts that many words in our activation paradigm could be used as verbs. Indeed, almost any noun can function as a verb, especially in current English usage. One of the paper's authors used the majority of the nouns as verbs in a response, part of which is reproduced here: "Maybe we should fire up our computers, key in a response, hammer our point home, fish around for more information and fire off a salvo. Would you like to pencil in a meeting so that we can clock up some thinking time? I'll chair it if you like, and I'll bicycle over to your office." While it is possible that this strategy may be employed by some adults with good English language skills, it seems an unlikely approach in, for example, six year olds. As part of our study we piloted the words in children aged six to 15 and their overt responses indicated that they were using or interpreting the words as nouns. The detection of relative ambiguity at the single word level ought to develop relatively late, being a higher-order aspect of language. Furthermore, the instructions given to participants created a mental set that the word viewed on screen would be a noun ("object"). [1]
Language cortex activation in normal children 25 August 2005
Helen F. Stanbro, MPhil, none 1632 Camino Redondo, Los Alamos NM 87544 Send Correspondence to journal: Re: Language cortex activation in normal children h_stanbro{at}hotmail.com Helen F. Stanbro, MPhil	In the article by Wood et al, there is a section on verb generation paradigms where a list of "nouns" is given. According to the authors, these were words "which could not be read as either a noun or a verb (for example 'sail')." Here is the list: rabbit, child, artist, pig, bird, wolf, fire, fish, needle, knife, balloon, cat, ball, wheel, key, ship, plant, lion, sun, horse, wind, door, mouse, hair, frog, clock, kangaroo, top, rain, dog, bell, baby, train, scissors, light, kite, bee, windmill, shoe, pencil, shirt, broom, chair, eagle, water, paper, hammer, apple, bed, bicycle, block, spoon, bottle, and cup. Despite this assertion, at least 33 of these 54 words* can be read as either a noun or a verb (and in many cases, as an adjective), and one of them, "wind," is a homograph which can be a verb in both its meanings (e.g., "Roland was determined to wind his horn one last time before he perished at Roncesvalles" or "You must wind this old- fashioned clock with a key."). It would be desirable to repeat the experiment with a list of undisputed nouns to see if the results are different. References 1) Wood A, Harvey AS, Wellard RM, et al. Language cortex activation in normal children. Neurology 2004;63:1035-1044. *wolf, fire, fish, needle, knife, balloon, wheel, key, ship, plant, sun, horse, wind, clock, top, rain, dog, bell, baby, train, light, shoe, pencil, chair, water, paper, hammer, bed, bicycle, block, spoon, bottle, cup.