COGNITIVE MORPHOLOGY Laura Westmaas November 24, 2009

Outline Cognitive Morphology Theories of morphology Methods for studying morphology Inflectional morphology Derivational moprhology Theoretical implications Cognitive Morphology Theories of morphology Methods for studying morphology Inflectional morphology Derivational moprhology Theoretical implications

Psycholinguistics Definition Goals

Cognitive Morphology Getting into the headspace of psycholinguistic literature Formal definitions/conceptualizations of morphology Goals of theory/research/models

What is the morpheme? Traditional definition “smallest meaningful bearing unit in a language” (Whitley, 2001) Classes of morphemes Inflectional Derivational

Experimental methodology behavioural priming lexical decision tasks Electrophysiological, neuroimaging Bilinguals and special populations (children, aphasics, dyslexics) Rationale of methodology

Morphological Theory Whole word (e.g., Feldman & Fowler, 1987) Dual route (e.g., Marslen-Wilson, Tyler, Waksler & Older, 1994) Obligatory morphemic decomposition (e.g., Taft & Forster, 1975; Taft, 2004; Rastle et al.) Connectionist ( E.g Plaut & Gonnerman, 2000; Seidenberg & Gonnerman, 2000, Rueckl et al, 1997))

Whole Word Approach Stimuli Lexicon Stimuli Lexicon Example from Marslen-Wilson, et al, 1994

Dual route theory Words and Rules theory (Pinker & Ullman, 2002) Grammatical rules + stem in lexicon Irregulars and monomorphemic words in lexicon

Obligatory Decomposition Stimuli Lexicon

Connectionist Models The triangle model

Inflectional morphology The case of past tense (Masked) priming paradigm Lexical decision task Behavioural predictions/ findings Interpretations Frequency by regularity interaction Some recent research

+ BAKED + BAKE Lexical decision: Y/N

+ TOOK + TAKE Lexical decision: Y/N

Classic findings Response times (ms) are faster for regular than irregular words Dual route would say this is because try to apply rule, blocked then access lexicon Connectionist would say that this is a by-product of the degree of semantic, orthographic and phonological overlap between the prime and target word Also note that there is a frequency by regularity interaction.

Interpretation of frequency by regularity interaction Dual route: highly frequent irregulars get stored directly in lexicon, direct access just like regulars Connectionist: overlap from prime lowers the threshold of activation, mapping between sound, meaning and orthography not as clear -greater reliance on semantics (v.s. phonology) -picture task to see if activation via meaning rather than form would wipe out differences between irregular and regular verbs Dual route prediction: it shouldn’t, need to activate stem than past tense Connectionist prediction: should get rid of effect of regularity

Woolams, Joanisse & Patterson (2009, JML)

Derivational morphology Questions of interest Predictions Rastle findings Feldman findings Thesis

Question What happens when a reader encounters a multi-morphemic word?

Predictions? Obligatory decomposition: If it looks like a morpheme, take it apart! VERSUS Connectionist: Graded- take it apart, sometimes - but not just about the morphemes.

morpheme not a morpheme Semantic Transparency Rastle et al (2004) Semantically transparent e.g. harden-hard Semantically opaque e.g. corner-corn Form e.g. brothel-broth

Connectionist Graded Effects PAINTERDRESSERCORNERBROTHEL Transparent***OpaqueForm Semantically relatedNot related Examples from Rastle et al, 2004,

The Case of Opaque Words Has supported decomposition, under a certain set of experimental conditions characteristics of study seem to matter: – Prime duration; non-word stimuli, orthographic neighbours, word length, word frequency, etc.

Masked Priming Logic: –if morphemes are used to decompose words, should see priming effects between a multi-morphemic word and its stem compared ton unrelated baseline

+ CORNER CHAIR + CORN Lexical decision: Y/N

Masked priming Main findings (Eg. Rastle et al, 2004) HARDEN-HARD  CORNER-CORN  BROTHEL-BROTH no priming Taken as evidence for obligatory decomposition during early stages of visual word recognition. priming

My thesis, currently in progress ERP investigation of differences in the N400 component between pseudo- suffixed and suffixed words by using a color-morpheme boundary manipulation. Predictions: Dual route theory: no difference between suffixed and pseudo-suffixed Connectionist: differences between suffixed and pseudo-suffixed words; congruency by word type interaction.

Experimental Paradigm Prinzmetal, Treiman, & Rho (1986) Carreiras, Vergara, & Barber (2005) Explore the effects of mis/match of morpheme boundaries Word in 2 colours and in/congruent –E.g. CONGRUENT WALKED INCONGRUENT WALKED

Procedure 4 Word Lists congruentcongruentincongruentincongruent dresser dresserdresserdresser Transparent, opaque, form + intermediate cases (eg. dresser) Only one list seen by each participant.

Conclusions Current state of the art Current directions of the field what psycholinguistic research can tell us about morphology need for inter-disciplinary research

Questions/Comments? Thanks!