Morphology constrains native and non-native word formation in different ways

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harald Clahsen ◽  
Sabrina Gerth ◽  
Vera Heyer ◽  
Esther Schott
Keyword(s):  
Information Sources ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Structural Constraints ◽  
L2 Processing ◽  
Syntactic Information ◽  
Other Information ◽  
Late Bilinguals

The role of morphological and syntactic information in non-native second language (L2) comprehension is controversial. Some have argued that late bilinguals rapidly integrate grammatical cues with other information sources during reading or listening in the same way as native speakers. Others claim that structural cues are underused in L2 processing. We examined different kinds of modifiers inside compounds (e.g. singulars vs. plurals, *rat eater vs. rats eater) with respect to this controversy, which are subject to both structural and non-structural constraints. Two offline and two online (eye-movement) experiments were performed examining the role of these constraints in spoken language comprehension of English and German, testing 77 advanced L2 learners. We also compared the L2 groups to corresponding groups of native speakers. Our results suggest that despite native-like sensitivity to the compounding constraints, late bilinguals rely more on non-structural constraints and are less able to revise their initial interpretations than L1 comprehenders.

L1–L2 asymmetry in animacy effects in the processing of Japanese relative clause

2015 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanako Mitsugi ◽  
Yasuhiro Shirai
Keyword(s):  
Constraint Satisfaction ◽  
Semantic Information ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
L2 Processing ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
First Languages ◽  
The Subject ◽  
English Group ◽  
Processing Difficulty

AbstractUsing self-paced reading, this study investigated the role of head animacy in the processing of Japanese relative clauses (RCs). Second language (L2) learners whose first languages (L1) are English and Korean, and Japanese native speakers participated. The results showed that for native speakers, inanimate heads diminished the processing difficulty associated with object RCs. However, head animacy did not have an effect on L2 processing. The Korean group showed the subject-object asymmetry but no effect of head animacy. The English group did not demonstrate the effect of RC type or head animacy. The overall pattern of these results suggests that L2 learners of Japanese are not guided by syntactic and lexical-semantic information in the same way as Japanese native speakers. These findings are interpreted within the constraint-satisfaction models (MacDonald et al., 1994) and are further discussed in the light of the research concerning the transfer of L1 processing routines.

Accounting Errors and Errors of Accounting

2010 ◽  
Vol 85 (6) ◽  
pp. 1827-1838 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Christensen
Keyword(s):  
Information Sources ◽  
Bayes Theorem ◽  
Mean Value ◽  
Information Channel ◽  
Accounting Numbers ◽  
The World ◽  
Other Information ◽  
Accounting Model ◽  
The Mean

ABSTRACT: Accounting should pay more attention to errors, as errors are essential for the updating of beliefs. Accounting is an information system, and errors are the carriers of information according to Bayes’ Theorem. Accountants are primarily concerned with the mean (value), but the variance of accounting numbers is equally important. Only autocorrelation makes historical accounting relevant for decision purposes. Endogenous errors of accounting are more common than acknowledged. First, the accounting model is linear, whereas the world is nonlinear. Second, accounting is not the only information channel, and accountants must consider the role of accounting when it supplements other information sources. This commentary discusses the consequences of endogenous errors. Errors are inherent to accounting, and accountants must address them.

scholarly journals Top-down information is more important in noisy situations: Exploring the role of pragmatic, semantic, and syntactic information in language processing

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabio Trecca ◽  
Kristian Tylén ◽  
Riccardo Fusaroli ◽  
Christer Johansson ◽  
Morten H. Christiansen
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Speech Input ◽  
Processing Strategies ◽  
Syntactic Information ◽  
Noisy Conditions ◽  
Relative Weighting ◽  
Different Sources

Language processing depends on the integration of bottom-up information with top-down cues from several different sources—primarily our knowledge of the real world, of discourse contexts, and of how language works. Previous studies have shown that factors pertaining to both the sender and the receiver of the message affect the relative weighting of such information. Here, we suggest another factor that may change our processing strategies: perceptual noise in the environment. We hypothesize that listeners weight different sources of top-down information more in situations of perceptual noise than in noise-free situations. Using a sentence-picture matching experiment with four forced-choice alternatives, we show that degrading the speech input with noise compels the listeners to rely more on top-down information in processing. We discuss our results in light of previous findings in the literature, highlighting the need for a unified model of spoken language comprehension in different ecologically valid situations, including under noisy conditions.

Syntactic features and reanalysis in near-native processing

2006 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 369-397 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holger Hopp
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
First Language ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Response Latencies ◽  
Advanced Learners ◽  
Reading Accuracy ◽  
L2 Processing ◽  
Ultimate Attainment ◽  
L1 English

In order to investigate second language (L2) processing at ultimate attainment, 20 first language (L1) English and 20 L1 Dutch advanced to near-native speakers of German as well as 20 native Germans were tested in two experiments on subject-object ambiguities in German. The results from a self-paced reading task and a speeded acceptability judgement task show that the lower-proficient advanced learners in this study display the same processing preferences as natives in reading accuracy yet fail to demonstrate differential response latencies associated with native syntactic reanalysis. By contrast, near-native speakers of either L1 converge on incremental native reanalysis patterns. Together, the findings highlight the role of proficiency for processing the target language since it is only at near-native levels of proficiency that non-natives converge on native-like parsing. The results support the view that endstate non-native processing and native processing are qualitatively identical.

scholarly journals LEXICAL NOMINATION AS A REFLECTION OF CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL EXPERIENCE IN OLD ENGLISH SEAFARING

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 16-20
Author(s):  
Natalia Atnabayeva ◽  
Vladimir Baltachev ◽  
Yekaterina Troynikova ◽  
Lilia Khasanova
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Language Representation ◽  
Mode Of Operation ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Degree Of Participation ◽  
Content Design

The theory that nominative processes extended through centuries to systematic formations of special terminological meanings of professional Old and Middle English marine terminological vocabulary had already been explained in different ways based on an evidential linguistic material. There is no doubt of the historical and philosophical approaches employed to describe the ancient language representation of the native speakers’ world, as well as of the role and degree of their participation in the formation of nominations inclusive of those of ancient seafaring vehicles. Having been referenced repeatedly, both conceptually and through documents, they had confirmed their right to exist.  In several topical articles, terminological units have already been represented by a synonymous series of proper nominations for the seafaring vessels (boats/ships) of various types by respective lexically-organized terms according to their word-formation, structural and content design in the Old and the Middle English. Despite the apparent decline of interest towards the subject of historical nominations in general, and the history of the English Marine language in particular,thereare unsettled challenges in the field. Specifically, more clarity is required regarding the incentives, degree of participation and the role of extralinguistic (human) factor in the history of a vessel-name formation, as well as in the mode of operation of the nominative apparatus for the above marine terms with respect to the of intralinguistic (language) factors involved.

scholarly journals Differences between grammatical gender and semantic gender in pronominal antecedent retrieval in Brazilian Portuguese

Diacrítica ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 89-115
Author(s):  
Michele Calil dos Santos Alves
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Structural Constraints ◽  
Interference Effects ◽  
Morphological Cues ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Syntactic Dependency

Coreference is a syntactic dependency in which pronouns are bound to previous referents in discourse. Granted that antecedents of anaphors must be retrieved from memory in coreference, the aim of this research is to provide more information on how pronominal antecedents are retrieved, and more precisely to clarify the role of gender cues in pronominal antecedent retrieval when gender morphology is overt. Since Portuguese is a language with visible morphology, speakers of this language are used to rely on agreement cues to process language. The results of two eye-tracking experiments conducted with native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese demonstrated that both binding structural constraints and gender morphological cues are equally important in antecedent retrieval in memory throughout processing. In addition, the results indicated that semantic gender seemed to weigh more in memory than grammatical gender since structurally unacceptable candidates carrying semantic gender caused more interference effects than grammatical gender.

L2 processing of Arabic derivational morphology

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzanne Freynik ◽  
Kira Gor ◽  
Polly O’Rourke
Keyword(s):  
Lexical Processing ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Derivational Morphology ◽  
Arabic Speakers ◽  
European Languages ◽  
L2 Processing ◽  
Native Arabic Speakers ◽  
Complex Words

Abstract The current study examined how non-native speakers process the highly productive derivational morphology of Arabic in which, in contrast to Indo-European languages, word formation involves interleaving a root and template structure. Previous research shows that native speakers of Arabic decompose morphologically complex words in lexical processing. Using cross-modal priming, the current study shows that non-native speakers of Arabic (L1 English) also decompose derived forms such that there is priming between words that share a common root which is not due to semantic or phonological overlap. In spite of the typological distance, native English speakers organize their L2 Arabic lexicons in a manner similar to native Arabic speakers.

scholarly journals O processamento de lexemas com combinação afixal múltipla no português europeu

2017 ◽  
pp. 285-300
Author(s):  
Alexandra Soares Rodrigues
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Recall Task ◽  
Structural Constraints ◽  
Semantic Transparency ◽  
European Portuguese ◽  
Shed Light

This work aims to understand the limits to the syntagmatic extension of multiple derivational affixation which deals with affixes that operate in productive word-formation patterns of contemporary European Portuguese (Rio-Torto et al., 2016). The work is theoretically supported on the multiple-route model (Kuperman et al., 2010) and empirically based on the analysis of corpora (Corpus de Referência do Português Contemporâneo and Linguateca) and of experiments (acceptability judgement task and recall task) made with native speakers of European Portuguese. The empirical phenomenon of the multiple affixation under focus is constituted by lexemes containing the suffix series -bil/-al-iz(a)-bil-idade, which is observable in words with low frequency such as comercializabilidade and materializabilidade. Under the perspective of structural constraints (Gaeta, 2015; Rodrigues, 2014; 2015), multiple affixation should be possible as long as the constraints between affixes are obeyed. However, the low frequency of the multiple affixation under analysis arouses the hypothesis that processual conditionings influence the limits of multiple affixation. The acceptability judgement task and the recall task aim to shed light on the psycholinguistic conditions that intervene in the limits of multiple affixation. The study concludes that variables such as the frequency of the affix combination, semantic transparency, affix salience, and expectedness (Bell & Schäffer, 2013; 2016) towards the combination are important for the pattern construction power of the affix combination, that is, for the capacity of the combination to function as a mental pattern that allows the speaker to produce and analyze lexemes. The pattern construction power depends on the experience of the speaker towards the affix combination.

scholarly journals Processing empty categories in a second language: When naturalistic exposure fills the (intermediate) gap

2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 167-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHRISTOS PLIATSIKAS ◽  
THEODOROS MARINIS
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Ongoing Debate ◽  
L2 Processing ◽  
Syntactic Information ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
Shallow Structure Hypothesis ◽  
Empty Categories ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Shallow Structure

An ongoing debate on second language (L2) processing revolves around whether or not L2 learners process syntactic information similarly to monolinguals (L1), and what factors lead to a native-like processing. According to the Shallow Structure Hypothesis (Clahsen & Felser, 2006a), L2 learners’ processing does not include abstract syntactic features, such as intermediate gaps of wh-movement, but relies more on lexical/semantic information. Other researchers have suggested that naturalistic L2 exposure can lead to native-like processing (Dussias, 2003). This study investigates the effect of naturalistic exposure in processing wh-dependencies. Twenty-six advanced Greek learners of L2 English with an average nine years of naturalistic exposure, 30 with classroom exposure, and 30 native speakers of English completed a self-paced reading task with sentences involving intermediate gaps. L2 learners with naturalistic exposure showed evidence of native-like processing of the intermediate gaps, suggesting that linguistic immersion can lead to native-like abstract syntactic processing in the L2.

The Role of Nonadjacent Phonotactic Dependencies in the Perception of Spoken Language

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Conor T. McLennan ◽  
Paul A. Luce ◽  
Robert La Vigne
Keyword(s):  
Spoken Language
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