Measuring the level of abstraction

Abstract

To test the level of abstraction, the generally accepted grammatical categories of the parts of speech were analyzed. It was found that most parts of speech contained certain categories that were statistically related to abstractness and certain others related to concreteness. In general, words related to abstractness are more indefinite, those related to concreteness more definite. The count of "definite words" in test passages was correlated with the grade level of children who answered correctly one-half of the test questions. Intercorrelations were computed between this count and other tests of readability, yielding a multiple regression formula to predict readability, based on the percentage of "definite words" and the average word length in syllables. 21 references. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)