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Lorenz and Cobb continue their studies of the correlation between linguistic characteristics and various psychiatric syndromes. Linguistic characteristics, apart from content of speech, can convey information about habits of thought and feeling. The study of the structure of language, its grammar and syntax, is an objective means of psychiatric investigation, susceptible to quantitative methods of study. In the present study, an analysis is made of samplings of speech of ten patients with the clinical diagnosis 'psychoneurosis, hysteria', compared with ten normal controls. The samplings consist of a thousand consecutive words taken at random from a fifteen-minute recording of spontaneous speech, compared then with samplings of the spoken responses to two thematic apperception test cards.
The results show that in general there is less flexible use of language in neurotic patients than in normal controls. The neurotics prefer verbs and pronouns and use fewer substantives, adjectives, and articulatory words. Their verb-adjective quotient, considered to be a measurement of anxiety, is found to be high. The constriction in the spontaneous use of language goes with a narrowing of interests and preoccupation with a specific type of mental content. Much use of the pronoun 'I' occurs, indicating egocentricity. The substitution of 'is' for 'was' indicates a greater orientation to the immediate present and a tendency to assertiveness. There is emphasis upon actions and relationships rather than upon objects, and a restriction of the flow of ideas away from a given focus. Language is used primarily as a medium for self-expression and less to provide contents for mutual consideration with others.