cognitive morphology laura westmaas november 24, 2009
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COGNITIVE MORPHOLOGY
COGNITIVE MORPHOLOGY
Laura WestmaasLaura Westmaas
November 24, 2009November 24, 2009
OutlineOutline
•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
HAPPY
HAPPY
HAPPINESS
HAPPINESS
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
QuickTime™ and a decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Obligatory Decomposition
HAPPY -NESS
HAPPINESS
Stimuli
Lexicon
Connectionist Models
QuickTime™ and a decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
The triangle model
QuickTime™ and a decompressor
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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
+
BAKELexical decision: Y/N
+TOOK
+
TAKELexical 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.
QuickTime™ and a decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
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)
QuickTime™ and a decompressor
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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 TransparencyRastle et al (2004)
• Semantically transparent
• e.g. harden-hard
• Semantically opaque
• e.g. corner-corn
• Form
• e.g. brothel-broth
Connectionist
• Graded Effects
PAINTER DRESSER CORNER BROTHEL
Transparent *** Opaque Form
Semantically related Not 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 ParadigmPrinzmetal, 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
• congruent congruent incongruent incongruent
• dresser dresser dresser dresser
• 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!
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