The journey from thought to spoken word is not always smooth. Mistakes happen from time to time, such as slips of the tongue. Then we sometimes say, “The cook is cooking in the kitchen. Every once in a while, our speech production fails when it comes to recalling knowledge, so that we can’t think of a certain word. Sometimes it is literally “on the tip of our tongue. We know exactly that we know it, and we can even name some characteristics of that word (e.g., the first letter or the length of the word). Only the whole thing does not come to mind. However, it often seems as if the escaped word is about to pass our lips. Where exactly does it get stuck at such moments?
To do this, we need to briefly visualize how our mental lexicon is structured. This is the term used to describe the part of long-term memory that contains linguistic knowledge. The mental lexicon consists of different levels. On one level, the form level, the written image and sound form of each word is represented. Another level stores the meaning of a word and how it can be combined with other words. Technically, this level is called the lemma level.
But because mental processes are not only linguistic, something else must be added: concepts. Like knots, they are connected to various aspects of knowledge, including images, smells, sounds, emotions, and words. Everything we associate with a person, such as our neighbor, and what she means to us is stored here. In order to express a thought in language, the concept must first be activated. Then the search begins for entries in the mental lexicon whose meaning matches the concept. Finally, the form information must be retrieved, i.e., what the neighbor’s name is again.
Even if we don’t think about it right away, we can sometimes tell what gender the word we’re looking for is and that it’s a job title. This suggests that access to the lemma level works because it is where information such as the grammatical gender of a word is stored. In addition, experiments in the language lab show that a phonological clue, i.e. a word with a similar sound, is more likely to help find the name than a word with a similar meaning. This suggests that the problem lies at the level of form. About a third of the time, people fail to determine the genus of a noun that is on the tip of their tongue. This is a problem at both the morphological and lemmatical levels.
Taken together, this means that a word on the tongue is incompletely activated on one or more levels. Therefore, we sometimes know what it rhymes with or which syllable it is stressed on, but its form is not (yet) composed. Unfortunately, there is no surefire technique for overcoming such a condition. In everyday life, there is usually no teacher around to give you tips. Personally, I try to say out loud all the words that I can eliminate. That way you can mentally get them out of your mind. But that doesn’t always help.
The next time you have a word on the tip of your tongue, take comfort in knowing that everyone experiences this phenomenon, sometimes less often, sometimes more often. The phenomenon occurs in every language and culture in the world – and about 1.4 times a week.