Slovné asociovanie detí hovoriacich po slovensky
Word associations of Slovak speaking children

Summary/Abstract: This article aims to present an empirical investigation of six- to seven-year-old children’s free word associations in Slovak. The empirical data analyzed in this article were collected via lexical decision task, a method used within the qualitative research design. The data analysis indicates the syntagmatic-paradigmatic shift in children’s word associations to stimulus nouns. In syntagmatic response to stimulus noun, the children produce either free verbal sequences or defining characteristics of a stimulus word (activity characteristics and descriptive attributes). In paradigmatic response to stimulus noun, the children produce semantically diverse associations, mostly in the following semantic categories: location or local proximity, inclusive parts, more distant meaning, word-formation paradigm, and coordinates. Despite the research limitations, the present results are consistent with the previous research findings in the field of children’s word associations in both Slovak and other languages.

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