Katselised meetodid tähenduse uurimisel

Kaesolev artikkel on luhike ja ulevaatlik sissejuhatus katselistesse meetoditesse tahenduse uurimisel. Artiklis tuuakse valja pohjuseid, miks katselisi meetodeid tahenduse uurimisel kasutada ja miks ainult uhel viisil kogutud andmetest ei piisa. Artikli esimene pool kasitleb katselisi meetodeid vordlevalt introspektsiooni ja korpus- analuusiga. Artikli teises pooles kirjeldatakse eri tuupi katseid, mida voib laias laastus jagada moodustuskatseteks (vaba moodustuse katse, sunnitud valiku katse, valjamoeldud stiimuliga moodustuskatse) ja arusaamiskatseteks (klassifitseerimiskatse, sobituskatse, vastuvoetavuse hindamise katse, ajaliselt moodetud verifitseerimine) ning loetleb vastavaid Eestis ja mujal tehtud (ruumi)semantika uurimusi. Experimental methods in studying semantics. The present article offers a short introduction to experimental methods in studying semantics. It highlights some of the reasons why use experiments in studying meaning and why it is not sufficient to employ just one type of method. The first part of the article takes a look at experimental methods in general, comparing it to introspection and corpus analysis. The second part of the article focuses on different types of experiments, which can be divided into production tasks (open-ended production tasks, forced choice tasks, nonsense word tasks) and comprehension tasks (classification tasks, matching tasks, acceptability judgements, speeded verification). It also gives a list of respective studies on (spatial) semantics carried out in Estonian and other languages.