Title:
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Form and morphology in second language morphological processing : evidence from priming experiments on English verb morphology
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Studies on the role of storage and computation in native speakers' processing of
complex words have shown morphological priming effects that differ between regular
and irregular inflection (see Clahsen 1999, Rastle and Davis, 2008 for review): when
stems of regularly inflected target words presented after morphologically related
prime words (walked-WALK), word/non-word-decisions are made faster than after the
presentation of unrelated primes (bank- WALK), often just as fast as after the
presentation of the stem itself (walk- WALK). For irregulars like slept, priming of the
stem (e.g. sleep) is reduced. Some researchers have argued that this results from
regularly inflected words being decomposed into affixes and stems, which are then
pre-activated for word/non-word decisions, while irregulars are stored as wholes that
are only associatively linked to their stems (Clahsen 1999). Others argue that
priming-effect sizes depend on formal/orthographic overlap between primes and
targets (Gonnerman et al., 2007). It is also debated whether second language (L2)
learners employ different processing mechanisms, or if they are just slower and less
efficient (Indefrey, 2006). Moreover, it is unclear whether formal/orthographic
information plays the same role in L1- and L2-processing.
This thesis presents four priming experiments with English native speakers and L2-
learners of English, with Arabic and Mandarin Chinese Ll. These experiments used
different priming methods (cross-modal, overt visual and masked priming) to study
regularly inflected verbs (walked-WALK), irregularly inflected verbs (sleep-SLEP1)
and orthographic ally/formally related pairs (yellow-YELL). The results show
significant morphological priming in all groups. L1-learners exhibited the expected
priming reduction for irregulars and no formal/orthographic priming. L2-learners
showed morphological priming, but less priming for regulars than the Ll-group and
significant orthographic priming effects for purely orthographically related primes
(yellow-YELL). This suggests that L2-speakers are less sensitive to the morphological
regular/irregular-distinction and rely more on orthographic information compared to
Ll speakers.
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