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MRC Psycholinguistic Database

Dict Utility Interface |   Reference   |  UWA Psychology
N.B. Getentry has been superseded by the Dict "Simple Letter Match"
1). Select the database fields to be displayed in the output
 
Word Meaningfulness: Paivio Norms
Number of letters Age of acquisition rating
Number of phonemes Word Type (see below)
Number of syllables Comprehensive syntactic category
Kucera-Francis written freq. Common part of speech (N/V/adJ/Other)
Kucera-Francis no. of categories Morphemic status (Prefix/Suffix/Abbrev/Hyph etc)
Kucera-Francis no. of samples Contextual status (Colloquial/Dialect/Archaic etc)
Thorndike-Lorge written freq. Pronunciation variability
Brown verbal frequency Capitalization
Familiarity rating Irregular plural (see below)
Concreteness rating Stress-marked phonetic transcription
Imagability rating Syllabified phonetic transcription
Meaningfulness: Colorado Norms Stress pattern (0 = reduced, 1 = unstressed, 2 = stressed)

2). Optionally set upper and/or lower limits for selected word properties.

 
NLET Number of letters    MIN:     MAX: 
NPHON Number of phonemes    MIN:     MAX: 
NSYL Number of syllables    MIN:     MAX: 
K-F-FREQ Kucera-Francis written frequency (>0)    MIN:     MAX: 
K-F-NCATS Kucera-Francis number of categories    MIN:     MAX: 
K-F-NSAMP Kucera-Francis number of samples    MIN:     MAX: 
T-L-FREQL Thorndike-Lorge written frequency (0-3000000)    MIN:     MAX: 
BROWN-FREQ Brown verbal frequency    MIN:     MAX: 
FAM Familiarity rating (100-700)    MIN:     MAX: 
CONC Concreteness rating (100-700)    MIN:     MAX: 
IMAG Imagability rating (100-700)    MIN:     MAX: 
MEANC Meaningfulness; Colorado Norms (100-700)    MIN:     MAX: 
MEANP Meaningfulness; Paivio Norms (100-700)    MIN:     MAX: 
AOA Age of acquisition rating; (100 x 1 [0-2 yrs] to 7 [13 on])    MIN:     MAX: 

3). Optionally filter the results to include or exclude words with specific properties and/or that match phonological, orthographic or prosodic patterns.

Flags for all available options (i.e. selection criteria) are shown in the fields to the right. To activate a criterion select either the INClude or EXClude radio button and edit the options as required (follow links for an explanation of terms and options). For example, to include only nouns in the output, enter N in the "Common Part of Speech" text box, and select the adjacent INClude button.

CAPITALIZATION
CAP: (Capitalized)
N/A
INC
EXC
   OPTIONS:

COMMON PART OF SPEECH
PDWTYPE: (Noun, adJective, Verb, Other)
N/A
INC
EXC
   OPTIONS:

COMPREHENSIVE SYNTACTIC CATEGORY
WTYPE: (Noun, adJective, Verb, Adverb, pReposition,
Conjunction, pronoUn, Interjection, Past participle, Other)
N/A
INC
EXC
   OPTIONS:

CONTEXTUAL STATUS
STATUS: ($ = Specialised, Archaic, Capital, Dialect, nonsEnse, Foreign/Alien, rHetorical, erroNeous, Obsolete, Poetical, colloQuial, Rare, Standard, nonce Word )
N/A
INC
EXC
   OPTIONS:

WORD TYPE
TQ2: (Q = Derivational variant of another word in the database, 2 = ends in silent |r|)
N/A
INC
EXC
   OPTIONS:

IRREGULAR PLURAL
IRREG: (Z = Plural, B = Both, Y = Singular, P = Plural but acts as singular, N = No plural)
N/A
INC
EXC
   OPTIONS:

MORPHEMIC STATUS/ALPHA SYLLABLE
ALPHSYL: (Suffix, Prefix, Hyphenated, Abbreviation, mulTi-word phrasal unit)
N/A
INC
EXC
   OPTIONS:

PRONUNCIATION VARIABILITY
VAR: (0 = Different stress patterns, B = Different phonology)
N/A
INC
EXC
   OPTIONS:

       
To filter the output using pattern matches, type the required patterns into the text boxes to the right. Multiple patterns should be separated by spaces or placed on separate lines. Each word output will match at least one pattern in any non-empty text box (as well as meeting any inclusion/exclusion criteria set above).
SIMPLE LETTER MATCH
(? = single letter, * = one or more letters); e.g. ?ill

N.B. Output for simple word lists (i.e. pattern lists that contain no wild characters) is in the order in which the words are input. Output is otherwise alphabetical.

Alternative matching characters can be grouped in square brackets; e.g. [bcr]at matches bat, cat and rat.

   PATTERN(S):
ROUGH PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION
(C/c = Consonant, S/s = Stop, F/f = Fricative, N/n = Nasal, A/a = Approximant, V/v = Vowel, M/m = Monophthong, D/d = Diphthong, ? = single segment, * = one or more segments); e.g. sm?c*
     PATTERN(S):
PRECISE PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION
(vowel monopthongs; 0 = bod, i = bead, A = bard, I = bid, & = bad, V = bud, O = bored, 3 = bird, u = boon, e = bed, U = pud, @ = laboured: vowel dipthongs; aI = bide, eI = bade, oI = boy, e@ = bared, I@ = beard, aU = bound, @U = bone: unvoiced stops; p = pill, t = till, k = kill: voiced stops; d = dill, b = bill, g = gill: unvoiced fricatives; f = fin, s = sin, T = thin, S = shin, h = hint: voiced fricatives; v = liver, z = lizard, D = leather, Z = leisure: nasals; m = whim, n = win, 9 = wing: approximants; l = lair, r = rare, w = ware, j = yeah: affricatives; tS = church, dZ = judge : wild chars; ? = single segment, * = one or more segments); e.g. k&*t

Alternative matching phonemes can be grouped in square brackets; e.g. [tSlb]3tS matches church, lurch and birch.
     PATTERN(S):

ORTHOGRAPHIC PATTERN
(C/c = Consonant, V/v = Vowel, ? = single letter, * = one or more letters); e.g. CV?VC
   PATTERN(S):

STRESS PATTERN
(0 = reduced, 1 = unstressed, 2 = stressed, ? = single segment, * = one or more segments); e.g. 20?*
   PATTERN(S):


4). Click on this button, or on this button to restore defaults.


FOOTNOTES:

  • Please note that the output buffer for this utility is very large, but not as large as the database itself. If you do not set effective constraints on the words returned (i.e. in Sections 2 and/or 3), the list returned will be truncated at 5000 lines.
  • This database and UNIX utilities (Mike Wilson, 1986) can be obtained from the Oxford Text Archive. Some of the component data sets are also available as separate files from Mike Wilson's website, which also contain notes on the history of the database, appropriate citation format, and selected links to other psycholinguistic data sources.
  • This web interface is based on John Culling's (1988, 1990) revisions of the "Dict" utility extended and modified for CGI implementation by Craig Clark.

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