The Silex database is a collection of three types of Excel workbooks: a series of Stimuli Selectors that allow researchers to select words based on a variety of statistics and word characteristics; a Table Generator that allows researchers to build frequency and probability tables by selecting specific phonological and orthographic units; and a Master File, from which all statistics were derived, and that allows interested users to compute other statistics. As such, Silex is a flexible tool and a rich source of information relevant to the study of spelling in general, and silent-letter endings in particular. For a demonstration of the novelty and utility of Silex, see Gingras & Sénéchal (2016).
Silex was derived from two existing databases, namely Manulex-infra (Peereman et al., 2007) and Lexique 3.80 (New et al., 2004). Given this origin, any reference to Silex must include a reference to Manulex-infra, Lexique 3.80, or both. These databases were selected because they are based on large and recent corpora targeted to completely different audiences. The Manulex-infra corpus comprises 54 children schoolbooks and is divided into grade-specific corpora, while Lexique 3.80 includes a corpus of 218 adult novels. Silex, the resulting unified database, comprises a total of 119,609 word entries.
Latest version: Silex 1.1
Silex 1.1 includes four additional variables regarding the number and frequency of homophones for each word in the Stimuli Selectors. For more details on this update, see the User Guide.
How to Cite Silex
To cite Silex, use this reference:
Gingras, M., & Sénéchal, M. (2016). Silex: A database for silent-letter endings in French words. Bevahior Research Methods. Advance online publication. doi:10.3758/s13428-016-0832-z
Do not forget the reference to Manulex-infra, Lexique 3.80, or both:
New, B., Pallier, C., Brysbaert, M., & Ferrand, L. (2004). Lexique 2: A new French lexical database. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 36, 516–524.
Peereman, R., Lété, B., & Sprenger-Charolles, L. (2007). Manulex-infra: Distributional characteristics of grapheme-phoneme mappings, and infralexical and lexical units in child-directed written material. Behavior Research Methods, 39, 593–603.