scholarly journals Hebrew Brain vs. English Brain: Language Modulates the Way It Is Processed

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 (9) ◽  
pp. 2280-2290 ◽  
Author(s):  
Atira S. Bick ◽  
Gadi Goelman ◽  
Ram Frost
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Morphological Structure ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Neural Circuitry ◽  
Morphological Processing ◽  
European Language ◽  
Semitic Language ◽  
Language Influence ◽  
The Way

Is language processing universal? How do the specific properties of each language influence the way it is processed? In this study, we compare the neural correlates of morphological processing in Hebrew—a Semitic language with a rich and systematic morphology, to those revealed in English—an Indo-European language with a linear morphology. Using fMRI, we show that while in the bilingual brain both languages involve a common neural circuitry in processing morphological structure, this activation is significantly modulated by the different aspects of language. Whereas in Hebrew, morphological processing is independent of semantics, in English, morphological activation is clearly modulated by semantic overlap. These findings suggest that the processes involved in reading words are not universal, and therefore impose important constraints on current models of visual word recognition.

scholarly journals Does the Morphological Structure of L1 Equivalents Influence the Processing of L2 Words? Evidence from Arabic-English Bilinguals

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 11-43
Author(s):  
Dina Abdel Salam El-Dakhs ◽  
Maram Al-Khodair ◽  
Rawan Alwazzan ◽  
Jeanette Altarriba
Keyword(s):  
Free Recall ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Word Association ◽  
Morphological Structure ◽  
Morphological Processing ◽  
Recall Task ◽  
Facilitatory Effect ◽  
Free Recall Task ◽  
Association Task

Objective. The current study aims at investigating if the morphological structure of the first language (L1) equivalents affects the processing of second language (L2) words. Materials & Methods. To this end, 400 Arabic-English bilinguals of two levels of language proficiency completed a free recall task and a discrete word association task in their L2. The stimuli represented cases of lexical matches and mismatches. Results. The results of the free recall task showed a facilitation effect for lexical matching in one comparison for the participants with lower proficiency while lexical matching led to an inhibitory effect in two comparisons for the participants with higher proficiency. Additionally, the participants with higher proficiency generally recalled more words than the participants with lower proficiency, and recalled monomorphemic words significantly differently than multi-morphemic words in one comparison. As for the results of the word association task, they failed to reveal significance for word type or language proficiency when association strength was considered. Only when the number of associations was considered, a facilitatory effect for lexical matching was observed in one comparison among the participants with lower proficiency.   Conclusions. The results generally support the claim that L2 learners exhibit sensitivity to the morphological structure of L1 words. The results also lend support to the interaction model of morphological processing and the bilingual lexicon models that highlight the influence of language proficiency on language processing.

How Simple Complex Words Can Be: Morphological Processing and Word Representations

1988 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marijke W. Bergman ◽  
Patrick T. W. Hudson ◽  
Paul A. T. M. Eling
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
Morphological Structure ◽  
Error Rates ◽  
Morphological Processing ◽  
Affect Recognition ◽  
Simple Complex ◽  
Morphological Complexity ◽  
Complex Words ◽  
Prefixed Words ◽  
Do So

In four lexical decision experiments we studied the effect of morphological complexity on word recognition. Some potentially relevant linguistic aspects of derived nouns were varied: the location of the affix (prefix vs. suffix); the genuineness of the affix (real vs. pseudo); the orthographic legality of pseudo-stems; semantic compositionality; the nature of the stem (free vs. bound); the origin of the complex word (Latinate vs. Germanic); the currency of the stem (current vs. moribund). Furthermore, in the first two experiments, we systematically varied the proportion of complex and simple words to see whether strategies influence morphological effects on recognition times. Consistent with Taft's notion of affix stripping, pseudoprefixed words show longer mean decision times and higher error rates than truly prefixed words. Further, the prefixed and nonprefixed (but not pseudoprefixed) words are processed equally rapidly, indicating that a decompositional process is efficient. No differences were found, however, for suffixed, pseudosuffixed, and nonsuffixed words. There was no effect of the proportion of simple and complex words. There are some indications that the etymological origin of words may affect recognition times, but no other linguistic aspects of derivations do so. The results of the four experiments are interpreted as supporting a left-to-right process for word recognition in which morphemes are extracted automatically. During this process information encoded by morphological structure becomes available for other processes.

Inflection and derivation in native and non-native language processing: Masked priming experiments on Turkish

2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 776-791 ◽  
Author(s):  
BILAL KIRKICI ◽  
HARALD CLAHSEN
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Experimental Research ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Masked Priming ◽  
Morphological Processing ◽  
European Language ◽  
Verb Inflection ◽  
Morphological Differences ◽  
Complex Words

Much previous experimental research on morphological processing has focused on surface and meaning-level properties of morphologically complex words, without paying much attention to the morphological differences between inflectional and derivational processes. Realization-based theories of morphology, for example, assume specific morpholexical representations for derived words that distinguish them from the products of inflectional or paradigmatic processes. The present study reports results from a series of masked priming experiments investigating the processing of inflectional and derivational phenomena in native (L1) and non-native (L2) speakers in a non-Indo-European language, Turkish. We specifically compared regular (Aorist) verb inflection with deadjectival nominalization, both of which are highly frequent, productive and transparent in Turkish. The experiments demonstrated different priming patterns for inflection and derivation, specifically within the L2 group. Implications of these findings are discussed both for accounts of L2 morphological processing and for the controversial linguistic distinction between inflection and derivation.

Morphological sensitivity generalizes across modalities

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chen Gafni ◽  
Maya Yablonski ◽  
Michal Ben-Shachar
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Morphological Structure ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Group Level ◽  
Psycholinguistic Research ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Auditory Word ◽  
Auditory Word Recognition ◽  
The Individual

Abstract A growing body of psycholinguistic research suggests that visual and auditory word recognition involve morphological decomposition: Individual morphemes are extracted and lexically accessed when participants are presented with multi-morphemic stimuli. This view is supported by the Morpheme Interference Effect (MIE), where responses to pseudowords that contain real morphemes are slower and less accurate than responses to pseudowords that contain invented morphemes. The MIE was previously demonstrated primarily for visually presented stimuli. Here, we examine whether individuals’ sensitivity to morphological structure generalizes across modalities. Participants performed a lexical decision task on visually and auditorily presented Hebrew stimuli, including pseudowords derived from real or invented roots. The results show robust MIEs in both modalities. We further show that visual MIE is consistently stronger than auditory MIE, both at the group level and at the individual level. Finally, the data show a significant correlation between visual and auditory MIEs at the individual level. These findings suggest that the MIE reflects a general sensitivity to morphological structure, which varies considerably across individuals, but is largely consistent across modalities within individuals. Thus, we propose that the MIE captures an important aspect of language processing, rather than a property specific to visual word recognition.

SECOND LANGUAGE USERS EXHIBIT SHALLOW MORPHOLOGICAL PROCESSING

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (5) ◽  
pp. 1121-1136
Author(s):  
Yoonsang Song ◽  
Youngah Do ◽  
Arthur L. Thompson ◽  
Eileen R. Waegemaekers ◽  
Jongbong Lee
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Morphological Structure ◽  
Morphological Processing ◽  
Real Time Processing ◽  
Time Processing ◽  
L2 Processing ◽  
Structured Representations ◽  
Shallow Structure Hypothesis ◽  
Shallow Structure

AbstractThe present study tests the Shallow Structure Hypothesis (SSH), which claims that compared to L1 processing, L2 language processing generally underuses grammatical information, prioritizing nongrammatical information. Specifically, this cross-modal priming study tests SSH at the level of morphology, investigating whether late advanced L2 learners construct hierarchically structured representations for trimorphemic derived words during real-time processing as native speakers do. Our results support SSH. In lexical decision on English trimorphemic words (e.g., unkindness or [[un-[kind]]-ness]), L1 recognition of the targets was facilitated by their bimorphemic morphological-structural constituent primes (e.g., unkind), but not by their bimorphemic nonconstituent primes (e.g., kindness), which were only semantically and formally related to the target. In contrast, L2 recognition was equally facilitated by both constituent and nonconstituent primes. These results suggest that unlike L1 processing, L2 processing of multimorphemic words is not mainly guided by detailed morphological structure, overrelying on nonstructural information.

PRINCIPAL PROBLEMS OF NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING SYSTEMS

2018 ◽  
pp. 35-38
Author(s):  
O. Hyryn
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language Processing ◽  
Natural Language ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Syntactic Analysis ◽  
Syntactic Ambiguity ◽  
Grammatical Structure ◽  
English Sentence ◽  
Analysis Methods ◽  
The Way

The article deals with natural language processing, namely that of an English sentence. The article describes the problems, which might arise during the process and which are connected with graphic, semantic, and syntactic ambiguity. The article provides the description of how the problems had been solved before the automatic syntactic analysis was applied and the way, such analysis methods could be helpful in developing new analysis algorithms. The analysis focuses on the issues, blocking the basis for the natural language processing — parsing — the process of sentence analysis according to their structure, content and meaning, which aims to analyze the grammatical structure of the sentence, the division of sentences into constituent components and defining links between them.

Second language processing of English past tense morphology: The role of working memory

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Filiz Rızaoğlu ◽  
Ayşe Gürel
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Second Language ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Negative Relationship ◽  
Masked Priming ◽  
Morphological Processing ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
L2 Learners

AbstractThis study examines, via a masked priming task, the processing of English regular and irregular past tense morphology in proficient second language (L2) learners and native speakers in relation to working memory capacity (WMC), as measured by the Automated Reading Span (ARSPAN) and Operation Span (AOSPAN) tasks. The findings revealed quantitative group differences in the form of slower reaction times (RTs) in the L2-English group. While no correlation was found between the morphological processing patterns and WMC in either group, there was a negative relationship between English and Turkish ARSPAN scores and the speed of word recognition in the L2 group. Overall, comparable decompositional processing patterns found in both groups suggest that, like native speakers, high-proficiency L2 learners are sensitive to the morphological structure of the target language.

scholarly journals Letter transpositions and morphemic boundaries in the second language processing of derived words: An exploratory study of individual differences

2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 417-446
Author(s):  
Hasibe Kahraman ◽  
Bilal Kırkıcı
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Exploratory Study ◽  
Reading Proficiency ◽  
Individual Variability ◽  
Morphological Processing ◽  
Group Level ◽  
Priming Effects ◽  
Second Language Processing ◽  
Morphological Priming

AbstractResearch into nonnative (L2) morphological processing has produced largely conflicting findings. To contribute to the discussions surrounding the contradictory findings in the literature, we examined L2 morphological priming effects along with a transposed-letter (TL) methodology. Critically, we also explored the potential effects of individual differences in the reading networks of L2 speakers using a test battery of reading proficiency. A masked primed lexical decision experiment was carried out in which the same target (e.g., ALLOW) was preceded by a morphological prime (allowable), a TL-within prime (allwoable), an substituted letter (SL)-within prime (allveable), a TL-across prime (alloawble), an SL-across prime (alloimble), or an unrelated prime (believable). The average data yielded morphological priming but no significant TL priming. However, the results of an exploratory analysis of the potential effects of individual differences suggested that individual variability mediated the group-level priming patterns in L2 speakers. TL-within and TL-across priming effects were obtained only when the performance of participants on nonword reading was considered, while the magnitude of the morphological priming effects diminished as the knowledge of vocabulary expanded. The results highlight the importance of considering individual differences while testing L2 populations.

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