The use of questionnaire test method in the study of meanings of the Finnish verbal colorative constructions describing laughter.

This article tends to be the first attempt to use questionnaire method in examining the meanings of Finnish verbal colorative construction, describing laughter, which consists of two verbs: a neutral infinitive verb nauraa (to laugh) and an colorative (onomatopoeic or descriptive) finite verb, e.g. rakattaa (to cackle), which describes or colorizes the denotative meaning. The questionnaire test is based on the cognitive etnolinguistic idea of the linguistic worldview and the assumption, that large and sufficiently heterogeneous population of native speakers individually and collectively knows what is "correct" in their language. In addition, this collective and implicit knowledge was assumed to be measurable to disclose even subtle differences in the various semantic dimensions of given words. The present article aims at the following research questions on verbal colorative construction using questionnaire: Is it possible to get from the informants information pertaining the meanings of colorative verbs and the verbal colorative constructions requesting a test method? What are the meanings of colorative verbs in the verbal colorative constructions? A total of 100 native subjects between the ages of 16 and 66 in Finland participated in the questionnaires. 11 questions were used for the test. All of the tests were made with pen-and-paper in controlled classroom situation. A consistent finding was that questionnaire test discloses very relevant lexical information that could not be gained in other ways, including meaning components of Finnish colorative verbs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]