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- Volume 2, Issue, 2007
The Mental Lexicon - Volume 2, Issue 3, 2007
Volume 2, Issue 3, 2007
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Semantics and phonology constrain compound formation
Author(s): Mark S. Seidenberg, Maryellen C. MacDonald and Todd R. Haskellpp.: 287–312 (26)More LessBerent and Pinker (2007) presented five experiments concerning the formation of compounds, especially the apparent restriction on the occurrence of “regular” plurals as modifiers (as in *RATS-EATER). Their data were said to support a “words and rules” approach to inflectional morphology, and to contradict the approach developed by Haskell, MacDonald, and Seidenberg (2003) in which multiple probabilistic constraints, mainly involving semantic and phonological properties of words, determine degree of acceptability. We examine Berent and Pinker’s studies and show that a) their experiments tested hypotheses that are incorrectly ascribed to our theory, and b) their data are actually compatible with our account. Contrary to the words and rules approach, there are phonological effects on modifier acceptability that cannot be subsumed by a grammatical rule.
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Slipping on superlemmas: Multi-word lexical items in speech production
Author(s): Koenraad Kuiper, Marie-Elaine van Egmond, Gerard Kempen and Simone Sprengerpp.: 313–357 (45)More LessOnly relatively recently have theories of speech production concerned themselves with the part idioms and other multi-word lexical items (MLIs) play in the processes of speech production. Two theories of speech production which attempt to account for the accessing of idioms in speech production are those of Cutting and Bock (1997) and superlemma theory (Sprenger, 2003; Sprenger, Levelt, & Kempen, 2006). Much of the data supporting theories of speech production comes either from time course experiments or from slips of the tongue (Bock & Levelt, 1994). The latter are of two kinds: experimentally induced (Baars, 1992) or naturally observed (Fromkin, 1980). Cutting and Bock use experimentally induced speech errors while Sprenger et al. use time course experiments. The missing data type that has a bearing on speech production involving MLIs is that of naturally occurring slips. In this study the impact of data taken from naturally observed slips involving English and Dutch MLIs are brought to bear on these theories. The data are taken initially from a corpus of just over 1000 naturally observed English slips involving MLIs (the Tuggy corpus). Our argument proceeds as follows. First we show that slips occur independent of whether or not there are MLIs involved. In other words, speech production proceeds in certain of its aspects as though there were no MLI present. We illustrate these slips from the Tuggy data. Second we investigate the predictions of superlemma theory. Superlemma theory (Sprenger et al., 2006) accounts for the selection of MLIs and how their properties enter processes of speech production. It predicts certain activation patterns dependent on a MLI being selected. Each such pattern might give rise to slips of the tongue. This set of predictions is tested against the Tuggy data. Each of the predicted activation patterns yields a significant number of slips. These findings are therefore compatible with a view of MLIs as single units in so far as their activation by lexical concepts goes. However, the theory also predicts that some slips are likely not to occur. We confirm that such slips are not present in the data. These findings are further corroborated by reference a second smaller dataset of slips involving Dutch MLIs (the Kempen corpus). We then use slips involving irreversible binomials to distinguish between the predictions of superlemma theory which are supported by slips involving irreversible binomials and the Cutting and Bock model’s predictions for slips involving these MLIs which are not.
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Word frequency and morphological processing in Finnish revisited
Author(s): Anna Soveri, Minna Lehtonen and Matti J. Lainepp.: 359–385 (27)More LessThe aims of the present study were to investigate the effects of word frequency on morphological processing of inflected words in Finnish, and to re-test previous results obtained for high frequency inflected words in Finnish which suggest that inflected words of high frequency might have full-form representations in the mental lexicon. Our results from three visual lexical decision experiments with monolingual Finnish speakers suggest that only very high frequency inflected Finnish words have full-form representations. This finding differs from results obtained from related studies in morphologically more limited Indo-European languages, in which full-form representations for inflected words seem to exist at a much lower level of frequency than in the morphologically rich Finnish language.
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Lexical and relational influences on the processing of Chinese modifier-noun compounds
Author(s): Hongbo Ji and Christina L. Gagnépp.: 387–417 (31)More LessThe data from three experiments indicate that recent exposure to a similar Chinese modifier-noun compound (e.g., 书柜, book cabinet or 饼店, cookie store) influences the ease of processing a subsequent compound (e.g., 书店, book store) by increasing the availability of the lexical entries for the individual constituents, and by altering the availability of the relation (e.g., noun FOR modifier) used to bind the two constituents. The results imply that theories and models about compound processing should take the representation of relational information into account and should be able to accommodate the influence of relation availability.
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Lexical dynamics for low-frequency complex words: A regression study across tasks and modalities
Author(s): R. H. Baayen, Lee H. Wurm and Joanna Aycockpp.: 419–463 (45)More LessIn this study we examine the word recognition process for low-frequency morphologically complex words. One goal of the study was to replicate and expand upon findings suggesting facilitative effects of morphological relatives of a target word. A second goal was to demonstrate the need for a reinterpretation of root and surface frequency effects, which traditionally have been taken as indicators of parsing-based and memory-driven processing, respectively. In a first study, we used the same stimuli across auditory and visual lexical decision and naming. Mixed-effects statistical modeling revealed that surface frequency was a robust predictor of RTs even in the very low end of the distribution, but root frequency was not. Also, the nature of the similarity between a target and its lexical competitors is crucial. Measures gauging the influence of morphological relatives of the target were facilitative, while measures gauging the influence of words related only in form were inhibitory. A second study analyzing data from the English Lexicon Project, for a large sample of words from across the full frequency range, supports these conclusions. An information-theoretical analysis of root and surface frequency explains why surface frequency must be the most important predictor, with only a marginal role for root frequency.
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