So for the project I'm working on for my thesis I need to decide whether some sentences are acceptable English sentences (i.e. whether a native speaker would actually say or write them) or not. Some of you may have gotten an email from me about this already, but there are a lot of sentences and a lot have not been rated yet. Tell your friends (also, you can do the test more than once if you want!).
Okay, so the program will give you some sentences and you just click the dots to show how acceptable you think they are. I asked for a five-point scale, but it would be most helpful if you would just ignore the 3-dot possibility, unless you really have no idea whether the sentence could be used or not. 1-dot and 5-dot responses are the best, but the other possibilities are there if you want them. Just so you know, the sentences were not written to be grammatical. If you find them completely weird, give them a 1. Don't think too hard, this is about your instincts about English (and for that reason, data from native English speakers is what I'm looking for here).
http://parsable.org:8080/frogverbs/frogverbs.jnlp
Click on the link and then it will download the little program. I think you have to have java in order to use it, but really, you should have java anyway, it's part of being a healthy human being. Then there will be instructions and then the sentences will come up. Go all the way through the sentences (it won't give you more than 50 at once and I think it's actually less than that) and then click the "complete" button in the last box so that your responses are added to the program. That's all. Have fun.
Posted by linnea at September 2, 2007 7:22 PM