The Mental Lexicon - Volume 2, Issue 1, 2007

This study investigates whether regular morphological complex neologisms leave detectable traces in the mental lexicon. Experiment 1 (subjective frequency estimation) was a validation study for our materials. It revealed that semantic ambiguity led to a greater reduction of the ratings for neologisms compared to existing words. Experiment 2 (visual lexical decision) and Experiment 3 (self-paced reading in connected discourse) made use of long-distance priming. In both experiments, the prime (base or neologism) was followed after 39 intervening trials by the neologism. As revealed by mixed-effect analyses of covariance, the target neologisms elicited shorter processing latencies in the identity priming condition compared to the condition in which the base word had been read previously, indicating an incipient facilitatory frequency effect for the neologism.

Interpreting a novel conceptual combination often involves selecting and using a relation to link the constituent concepts (e.g., interpreting a plastic pot as a pot made of plastic). In two experiments, we presented the head noun along with a property that, while always at least plausibly true of the head noun, may be more or less consistent with a particular relational interpretation of the combined concept. We then asked the participants to verify particular relational interpretations of the target combination. The results indicate that manipulating what is currently active about the head noun in this way affects the acceptability of different relational interpretations of the combined concept.

The way in which adult readers process the internal orthographic structure of words was examined in two languages that differ in their syllabic structure, English and Spanish. Readers of both languages were presented with polysyllabic words split according to either their pronounced syllable (e.g., cac tus) or their maximized initial unit corresponding to their Basic Orthographic Syllabic Structure (BOSS, e.g., cact us). In agreement with other recent research, it was found that speed of lexical decision to syllabically split words was faster than to BOSS split words for poorer English speakers, while better English speakers were more oriented toward the BOSS. The Spanish data suggested an overall syllable bias regardless of reading ability, though less so for better readers. The contrast between the English and Spanish results is explained in terms of phonological considerations being more important for Spanish readers.

Picture–word interference studies have consistently shown semantic interference effects with nouns. However, only few contradictory results are available at present with verbs. Two experiments on the production of Italian verbs were conducted in order to clarify the issue. Experiment 1 replicated Roelofs (1993). Experiment 2 showed that semantic interference effects obtain regardless of whether or not the distractor verbs are part of the response set. The results are interpreted as evidence that similar processes occur in the production of nouns and verbs. An explanation of the discrepancies present in the current literature is suggested.

Children’s creation of novel words is thought to be guided by several variables of their language(s), including the simplicity and frequency of required morphology and/or target structure (Clark, 1993). This study documents children’s acquisition of French deverbal Verb–Object compounds (e.g., lave-vaisselle ‘wash-dishes’ meaning dishwasher). Research from previous studies suggests that simple infrequent forms such as these will be acquired later (i.e., around 5 years). 34 monolingual French-speaking children between 3 and 5 years produced and indicated their understanding of novel deverbal compounds. The children’s vocabulary size was more strongly positively related to their production and comprehension of novel compounds than age. In comprehension, children often misinterpreted the Object of novel compounds as the subject of the action in the Verb. These results confirm that this simple infrequent form is acquired late.

We studied the emergence of productive verb inflection in pre-school native speakers of Quebec French using a verb elicitation task. We verified whether verb conjugation group (regular vs. irregular morphology) and frequency affect ability to produce correctly inflected passé composé forms. Special attention was paid to regularization into regular (default) and sub-regular conjugations, and on irregularization patterns. Results indicate that French-speaking children are able to productively use inflectional rules at very young ages and are sensitive to verb frequency and morphological patterns, both default or sub-regular, as evidenced by differential production patterns for regular and irregular verbs.