16 Ss read aloud affirmative and negative sentences presented in a sentence memory task. While reading each sentence, they performed either an associative or a dissociative manual task (putting two halves of a square together or taking them apart). Following presentation of a block of 8 sentences the Ss were given the sentence subjects as prompts and told to recall their predicates. Analysis of variance for recall errors showed, as predicted, an interaction between sentence mode (affirmative vs. negative) and manual action mode (associative vs. dissociative): Affirmative sentences were better recalled when their presentation had been paired with associative manual action, negative sentences when their presentation had been with dissociative manual action. This finding is interpreted within a model of sentence use which emphasizes a general constructive component.