Description:
The hypothesis investigated is that the semantic similarities of verbs of action are organized according to a limited number of semantic fields and the experiment is designed to identify these fields. Seven subjects have been asked to classify 172 verbs of action, chosen as a function of their frequency of occurrence, so that the verbs belonging to the same class have a definite similarity in meaning, with the possibility for a verb to be classified into several classes. A similarity index between each pair of verbs has been defined as the number of times both verbs of the pair have been ascribed to the same class, and using multidimensional methods six semantic fields have resulted from the analysis : movement and change in place, possession and transfer of possession, modification of a property of an entity or construction of a new entity by fitting parts together, causing damage to an entity by attack or destruction, basic activities neces- sary for life, processes describing the course of action. These semantic groupings have proved to be quite stable in a replication of the experiment using the same subjects.