It is not uncommon in science that following a period of turbulent growth, a skeptical mood builds up and doubts begin to be expressed as to the rationale of progress achieved and the extent to which the position reached coincides with the original goals. This kind of discomfort is felt today by linguists and their close companions, the psycholinguists. Despite its growing intensity, this discomfort is not readily verbalizable. Still, we will try to characterize it tentatively with a few angry assertions, each of which taken separately is perhaps untenable in its extreme form, but which together convey a sense of the malaise that seems to afflict the area in question, For one thing, the models and theories current in linguistics tend to approach a level of complexity at which extreme sophistication borders on folly. Further, the present inflation of macro- and microsystems testifies to the growing arbitrariness of theorizing - in spite of the abundance of publications specifying the criteria by which to evaluate these systems against a meta theory of science; thus we are made aware of the widening gulf between linguistic theory and the realities of language.

The major portion of the investigations described in the present volume would never have been undertaken without the generous support of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Society). During my professorship at the University of Marburg, I could not have carried on with my work in the psychology of language had it not been for the aid offered by this institution. Since these experimental investigations constitute the empirical backbone of the entire argument, I feel especially indebted to the Society. My warm thanks are also extended to the over two thousand subjects whose willing cooperation enabled my associates and myself to collect the body of data reported in these pages. I would like to thank the many parents, teachers, and school principals whose good will and collaboration were the prerequisites for conducting many of our experiments. The book also incorporates valuable contributions by my associates, insofar as my ideas and arguments bear the imprint of our joint work and discussion, to an extent that makes an accurate acknowledgement of each inspiration next to impossi ble. Giving them due credit, I would like to thank my assistants, the graduating students, and the student-aides back in Marburg and more recently in Mannheim."