Spoken language epitomizes human creativity.
Speaking requires formulating messages based on the ideas we want to express and the communicative goals we want to achieve. We formulate a message by choosing a grammatical structure, inserting words into that grammatical skeleton, inflecting the words, and then producing the sounds. Most psycholinguistic research on sentence production focuses on the processes that occur later in this sequence. Perhaps it is not surprising that the most creative aspect of sentence production is also the most elusive. Although Sridhar is a linguist, he began his work while studying with Charles Osgood, and his work reflects Osgood's influence.