scholarly journals Paradigmatic enhancement of stem vowels in regular English inflected verb forms

Morphology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-199
Author(s):  
Fabian Tomaschek ◽  
Benjamin V. Tucker ◽  
Michael Ramscar ◽  
R. Harald Baayen
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
Speech Production ◽  
Lexical Processing ◽  
Mental Lexicon ◽  
Morphological Processing ◽  
Word Structure ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
Complex Words ◽  
Phonetic Realization

AbstractMany theories of word structure in linguistics and morphological processing in cognitive psychology are grounded in a compositional perspective on the (mental) lexicon in which complex words are built up during speech production from sublexical elements such as morphemes, stems, and exponents. When combined with the hypothesis that storage in the lexicon is restricted to the irregular, the prediction follows that properties specific to regular inflected words cannot co-determine the phonetic realization of these inflected words. This study shows that the stem vowels of regular English inflected verb forms that are more frequent in their paradigm are produced with more enhanced articulatory gestures in the midsaggital plane, challenging compositional models of lexical processing. The effect of paradigmatic probability dovetails well with the Paradigmatic Enhancement Hypothesis and is consistent with a growing body of research indicating that the whole is more than its parts.

scholarly journals Universal and particular in morphological processing: Evidence from Hebrew

2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (5) ◽  
pp. 1125-1133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yael Farhy ◽  
João Veríssimo ◽  
Harald Clahsen
Keyword(s):  
Morphological Structure ◽  
Masked Priming ◽  
Word Processor ◽  
Morphological Processing ◽  
Root Decomposition ◽  
Priming Effects ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
Complex Words ◽  
Open Class

Do properties of individual languages shape the mechanisms by which they are processed? By virtue of their non-concatenative morphological structure, the recognition of complex words in Semitic languages has been argued to rely strongly on morphological information and on decomposition into root and pattern constituents. Here, we report results from a masked priming experiment in Hebrew in which we contrasted verb forms belonging to two morphological classes, Paal and Piel, which display similar properties, but crucially differ on whether they are extended to novel verbs. Verbs from the open-class Piel elicited familiar root priming effects, but verbs from the closed-class Paal did not. Our findings indicate that, similarly to other (e.g., Indo-European) languages, down-to-the-root decomposition in Hebrew does not apply to stems of non-productive verbal classes. We conclude that the Semitic word processor is less unique than previously thought: Although it operates on morphological units that are combined in a non-linear way, it engages the same universal mechanisms of storage and computation as those seen in other languages.

scholarly journals Is a Step through the Door a Way to Take a Doorstep? A Psycholinguistic Study on Polish Compound Words

2018 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 205-230
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Hwaszcz
Keyword(s):  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Lexical Access ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Mental Lexicon ◽  
Morphological Processing ◽  
Semantic Transparency ◽  
Compound Words ◽  
Complex Words ◽  
Test Current

The present study concentrates on the organization of the mental lexicon with regard to semantic transparency in the representation of Polish compounds. Its aim was to test current approaches to the processing of morphologically complex words in a lexical decision experiment with the use of visually presented Polish compound and simple words. The existing psycholinguistic approaches centre around the same question: are complex words parsed into their constituent parts or are they stored as full-word representations in the human mental lexicon? I referred to five widely acknowledged models of morphological processing to account for the outcomes of the present study. The data reveal that: i transparent compounds primed by words semantically related to the heads of these transparent compounds elicited faster response times than opaque compounds within the same condition; and ii priming speeds up the processing for both transparent and opaque compounds. The results indicate that the processing of Polish compound words is influenced by semantic transparency and that both transparent and opaque compounds are decomposed into their constituents prior to lexical access.

scholarly journals Paradigmatic Relations Interact During the Production of Complex Words: Evidence From Variable Plurals in Dutch

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Zee ◽  
Louis ten Bosch ◽  
Ingo Plag ◽  
Mirjam Ernestus
Keyword(s):  
Mental Lexicon ◽  
Corpus Studies ◽  
Alternative Variant ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Word Forms ◽  
Strong Representation ◽  
Complex Words ◽  
Potential Interactions

A growing body of work in psycholinguistics suggests that morphological relations between word forms affect the processing of complex words. Previous studies have usually focused on a particular type of paradigmatic relation, for example the relation between paradigm members, or the relation between alternative forms filling a particular paradigm cell. However, potential interactions between different types of paradigmatic relations have remained relatively unexplored. This paper presents two corpus studies of variable plurals in Dutch to test hypotheses about potentially interacting paradigmatic effects. The first study shows that generalization across noun paradigms predicts the distribution of plural variants, and that this effect is diminished for paradigms in which the plural variants are more likely to have a strong representation in the mental lexicon. The second study demonstrates that the pronunciation of a target plural variant is affected by coactivation of the alternative variant, resulting in shorter segmental durations. This effect is dependent on the representational strength of the alternative plural variant. In sum, by exploring interactions between different types of paradigmatic relations, this paper provides evidence that storage of morphologically complex words may affect the role of generalization and coactivation during production.

scholarly journals Priming effects in the recognition of simple and complex words and pseudowords

2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 198-222
Author(s):  
Miguel Lázaro ◽  
Víctor Illera ◽  
Javier Sainz
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Morphological Processing ◽  
Orthographic Processing ◽  
Frequency Effect ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Priming Effects ◽  
The Third ◽  
Complex Words ◽  
Intense Debate

AbstractWhether morphological processing of complex words occurs beyond orthographic processing is a matter of intense debate. In this study, morphological processing is examined by presenting complex words (brujería -> brujo –witchcraft -> witch), as well as simple (brujaña->brujo) and complex pseudowords (brujanza ->brujo), as primes in three masked lexical decision tasks. In the first experiment, the three experimental conditions facilitated word recognition in comparison to the control condition, but no differences emerged between them. Given the importance of the surface frequency effect observed, a second experiment was conducted. The results fully replicate those observed in the first one, but this time with low frequency targets. In the third experiment, vowels were removed from the stems of primes to reduce the orthographic overlap between primes and targets and, therefore, the influence of the embedded stem effect. The results show facilitative effects only for complex words. However, paired comparisons show no differences between experimental conditions. The overall results show the central role played by the processing of stems in visual word recognition and are explained in terms of current models of morphological processing.

The L2 syllabus: corpus or contrivance?

Corpora ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terry Shortall
Keyword(s):  
Natural Frequency ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Frequency Data ◽  
Present Perfect ◽  
Corpus Studies ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
Real Language ◽  
Corpus Data

Corpus linguists have argued that corpora allow us to present lexical and grammatical patterns to language learners as they occur in real language, thereby exposing the learner to authentic target language (Mindt, 1996; Biber et al., 2002; Sinclair, 2004). And there is now a growing body of empirical research into how corpus studies can benefit ELT materials design and development (Ljung, 1990, 1991; Römer, 2004, 2005). This study investigates how the present perfect is represented in a spoken corpus and in ELT textbooks. The objective is to see whether corpus frequency data can make textbook present perfect presentation represent reality more accurately, and also whether there are sometimes pedagogic aims that may override frequency considerations. Results show that textbooks fail to represent adequately how present perfect interacts with other verb forms to create hybrid tenses such the present perfect passive. Textbooks also over-represent the frequency of structures such as the present perfect continuous. Adverbs such as yet and already are much more frequent in textbooks than in the corpus. Textbook writers seem to deliberately exaggerate the frequency of such adverbs, and arguably use them as tense markers or flagging devices so that learners will expect to see present perfect when they see yet and already. This suggests that disregard for natural frequency data may be justifiable if pedagogic considerations of this kind are taken into account. So, while corpus data provides important and useful frequency data for the teaching of grammar, pedagogic objectives may sometimes require that frequency data is disregarded.

Psycholinguistics

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pouneh Shabani-Jadidi
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Mental Lexicon ◽  
Linguistic Analysis ◽  
Language Impairments ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
Research Tools

Psycholinguistics encompasses the psychology of language as well as linguistic psychology. Although they might sound similar, they are actually distinct. The first is a branch of linguistics, while the latter is a subdivision of psychology. In the psychology of language, the means are the research tools adopted from psychology and the end is the study of language. However, in linguistic psychology, the means are the data derived from linguistic studies and the end is psychology. This chapter focuses on the first of these two components; that is, the psychology of language. The goal of this chapter is to give a state-of-the-art perspective on the small but growing body of research using psycholinguistic tools to study Persian with a focus on two areas: presenting longstanding debates about the mental lexicon, language impairments and language processing; and introducing a source of data for the linguistic analysis of Persian.

Inflectional and Derivational Morphology in the Mental Lexicon: Symmetries and Asymmetries in Repetition Priming

1992 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 373-390 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Schriefers ◽  
A. Friederici ◽  
P. Graetz
Keyword(s):  
Repetition Priming ◽  
Mental Lexicon ◽  
Derivational Morphology ◽  
Lexical Organization ◽  
Priming Effects ◽  
Priming Paradigm ◽  
Complex Forms ◽  
Complex Words ◽  
Prime Target

Using a repetition priming paradigm, the interrelations between morphologically related words in the mental lexicon were examined in two experiments. In contrast to most previous studies, in which morphologically complex words occur as primes and stems as targets, derivationally and inflectionally complex forms were fully crossed in prime–target pairs. Experiment 1 showed asymmetries in the pattern of priming effects between different inflectional forms of German adjectives. Such asymmetries are problematic for any theory that assumes that all members of an inflectional paradigm share one entry in the mental lexicon. Experiment 2 contrasted derivational and inflectional variants of the same stems used in Experiment 1. Once again, there were same clear asymmetries in the pattern of priming effects. The implications of these results for models of lexical organization of inflectional and derivational morphology are discussed.

scholarly journals Generation of Complex Verbal Morphology in First and Second Language Acquisition: Evidence from Russian

Nordlyd ◽  
10.7557/12.54 ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 31 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kira Gor ◽  
Tatiana Chernigovskaya
Keyword(s):  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Mental Lexicon ◽  
Morphological Processing ◽  
State University ◽  
Verbal Morphology ◽  
University Of Maryland ◽  
Verb Classes ◽  
Verb Processing ◽  
The University ◽  
Work Done

This study explores the structure of the mental lexicon and the processing of Russian verbal morphology by two groups of speakers, adult American learners of Russian and Russian children aged 4-6, and reports the results of two matching experiments conducted at the University of Maryland, USA and St. Petersburg State University, Russia. The theoretical framework for this study comes from research on the structure of the mental lexicon and modularity in morphological processing. So far, there are very few studies investigating the processing of complex verbal morphology, with most of the work done on Icelandic, Norwegian, Italian, and Russian. The current views are shaped predominantly by research on English regular and irregular past-tense inflection, which has been conducted within two competing approaches. This study investigates the processing of verbal morphology in Russian, a language with numerous verb classes differing in size and the number and complexity of conjugation rules. It assumes that instead of a sharp opposition of regular and irregular verb processing, a gradual parameter of regularity may be more appropriate for Russian. Therefore, the issue of symbolic rule application versus associative patterning can take on a new meaning for Russian, possibly, with the distinction between default and non-default processing replacing the regular-irregular distinction.

How word frequency affects morphological processing in monolinguals and bilinguals

2003 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 213-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
MINNA LEHTONEN ◽  
MATTI LAINE
Keyword(s):  
High Frequency ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Morphological Processing ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Frequency Range ◽  
Medium Frequency ◽  
Word Forms ◽  
Full Form ◽  
Differential Pattern ◽  
Complex Words

The present study investigated processing of morphologically complex words in three different frequency ranges in monolingual Finnish speakers and Finnish-Swedish bilinguals. By employing a visual lexical decision task, we found a differential pattern of results in monolinguals vs. bilinguals. Monolingual Finns seemed to process low frequency and medium frequency inflected Finnish nouns mostly by morpheme-based recognition but high frequency inflected nouns through full-form representations. In contrast, bilinguals demonstrated a processing delay for all inflections throughout the whole frequency range, suggesting decomposition for all inflected targets. This may reflect different amounts of exposure to the word forms in the two groups. Inflected word forms that are encountered very frequently will acquire full-form representations, which saves processing time. However, with the lower rates of exposure, which characterize bilingual individuals, full-form representations do not start to develop.

Discriminative Learning and the Lexicon: NDL and LDL

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu-Ying Chuang ◽  
R. Harald Baayen
Keyword(s):  
Lexical Processing ◽  
Morphological Processing ◽  
Discriminative Learning ◽  
Computational Algorithms ◽  
Association Strength ◽  
Computational Theory ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Multivariate Multiple Regression ◽  
Lexical Learning ◽  
Set Up

Naive discriminative learning (NDL) and linear discriminative learning (LDL) are simple computational algorithms for lexical learning and lexical processing. Both NDL and LDL assume that learning is discriminative, driven by prediction error, and that it is this error that calibrates the association strength between input and output representations. Both words’ forms and their meanings are represented by numeric vectors, and mappings between forms and meanings are set up. For comprehension, form vectors predict meaning vectors. For production, meaning vectors map onto form vectors. These mappings can be learned incrementally, approximating how children learn the words of their language. Alternatively, optimal mappings representing the end state of learning can be estimated. The NDL and LDL algorithms are incorporated in a computational theory of the mental lexicon, the ‘discriminative lexicon’. The model shows good performance both with respect to production and comprehension accuracy, and for predicting aspects of lexical processing, including morphological processing, across a wide range of experiments. Since, mathematically, NDL and LDL implement multivariate multiple regression, the ‘discriminative lexicon’ provides a cognitively motivated statistical modeling approach to lexical processing.

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