The processing of morpheme-like units in monomorphemic words.

Marcus Taft & Paul Kougious

School of PsychologyUniversity of New South Wales

Sydney, AUSTRALIA

Are these polymorphemic words?

ACTOR

ORIGINATE

TIDAL

ARTIST

MOSTLY

YESYES

DONATE

FINISH

VIRUS

FLORAMOSTLY

NONO

What about these?

DONOR

ADHESIVE

VIRAL

FLORISTSOME YES YES SOME NONO

And these?

So,

VIRUS is not a polymorphemic

word, but VIRAL might be.

DONATE is not a polymorphemic

word, but DONOR might be.

But

VIRUS and VIRAL are clearly related, and they are related through

VIR.

Does this mean that VIR is a (bound) stem morpheme?

Similarly is DON a stem morpheme in DONATE and DONOR, even though the former is not considered to be polymorphemic?

Is FLOR a stem morpheme in FLORA and FLORIST?

Is FIN a stem morpheme in FINISH and FINAL?

Basically, we cannot define what is and is not a morpheme

and this is a problem for any model of lexical processing that has all-or-none morphemic representations.

An alternative suggestion:

• A lemma representation for words, mediating between form and meaning.• Lemma representations for sublexical units depending on the correlation of their form with meaning across different contexts.

• Sublexical form units.

• Sublexical form units.

Taft (1979, 1987, 2001, 2002) claimed that polymorphemic words are represented in terms of their BASIC ORTHOGRAPHIC SYLLABIC STRUCTURE (BOSS).

BOSS = Maximization of the coda of the first syllable

Examples:

LAB + EL (not LA + BEL)

VIR + US (not VI + RUS)

DON + ATE (not DO + NATE)

SPLEND + ID (not SPLEN + DID)

MAT + URE (not MA + TURE)

• A lemma representation for words, mediating between form

and meaning.

EL

label labour

SEMANTICSSEMANTICS

LAB OUR

LEMMASLEMMAS

ORTHOGRAPHYORTHOGRAPHY

• Lemma representations for sublexical units depending on the correlation of their form with meaning across different contexts.

So, there is a lemma that captures the correlation between the form unit VIR and the meaning that is consistent across VIRUS and VIRAL.

SEMANTICSSEMANTICS

vir

VIR AL

LEMMASLEMMAS

ORTHOGRAPHYORTHOGRAPHY

viral

US

virus

Predictions:

Prior presentation of VIRUS

vir

VIRUS

virus

VIR

vir

Prediction:

Prior presentation of VIRUS should facilitate lexical decision responses to VIRAL.

AL

viral vir

VIR

label

LABEL

Prior presentation of LABEL

Prediction:

labour

LAB OUR

Prior presentation of LABEL might not facilitate lexical decision responses to LABOUR.

LAB

Prediction:

Masked priming experiment:

VIRAL

50 ms

500 ms

virus

# # # # #

Semantically related (+S)Orthographic overlap (+O)Phonological overlap (+P)

e.g. virus VIRAL splendid SPLENDOUR donate DONOR captive CAPTURE

Semantically related (+S)Orthographic overlap (+O)No phonological overlap (-P)

e.g. final FINISH memento MEMORY stable STABILITY legal LEGISLATE

Semantic relatedness rating (7 pt scale): 5.02

Semantic relatedness rating (7 pt scale): 4.84

Compared to control condition:

Not semantically related (-S)No orthographic overlap (-O)No phonological overlap (-P)

e.g. major VIRAL tangle SPLENDOUR drama FINISH jacket MEMORY

20 words in each condition.

Participants divided into 2 groups with half the targets of one condition being primed and half being non-primed for each group.

Nonwords preceded either by +O prime or -O prime, which was either a word or a nonword.

e.g. family FAMURE guitar DEABIN lomour LOMITY pinible DONESKAN

450

470

490

510

530

550

570

590

+S +O +P virus

VIRAL

+S +O -P final

FINISH

primed

control -S -O -P

•Significant facilitation

•No interaction with phonological consistency

22

25 RTs

6

9

12

15

18

+S +O +P virus

VIRAL

+S +O -P final

FINISH

primed

control -S -O -P

•Significant facilitation

•No interaction with phonological consistency

% Error

2.6

4.6

Semantically related (+S)No orthographic overlap (-O)No phonological overlap (-P)

e.g. tired FATIGUE pursue FOLLOW compost MANURE tremble SHIVER

Semantic relatedness rating (7 pt scale): 5.29

To check whether the priming arose purely from semantic relatedness:

450

470

490

510

530

550

570

590

+S -O -P tired

FATIGUE

primed

control -S -O -P

•No pure semantic priming

5

RTs

% Error

6

9

12

15

18

+S -O -P tired

FATIGUE

primed

control -S -O -P

•No pure semantic priming

-2.3

Is there any pure orthographic priming?

Not semantically related (-S)Orthographic overlap (+O)Phonological overlap (+P)

e.g. label LABOUR carnival CARNATION mature MATERIAL total TOTEM

Not semantically related (-S)Orthographic overlap (+O)No phonological overlap (-P)

e.g. saliva SALAD radar RADICAL river RIVAL capital CAPABLE

Semantic relatedness rating (7 pt scale): 1.70

Semantic relatedness rating (7 pt scale): 1.71

450

470

490

510

530

550

570

590

-S +O +P label LABOUR

-S +O -P rival RIVER

primed

control -S -O -P

•No pure orthographic effect

614

RTs

% Error

6

9

12

15

18

-S +O +P label LABOUR

-S +O -P rival RIVER

primed

control -S -O -P

•No pure orthographic effect

-4.0

-2.0

6

9

12

15

18

+S +O +P virus

VIRAL

+S +O -P final

FINISH

% Error

6

9

12

15

18

-S +O +P label

LABOUR

-S +O -P rival RIVER

primed

control

vir

VIR AL

viral

US

virus

EL

label labour

LAB OUR

Simpler alternative:

VIRUS VIRALLABEL

LABOUR

Priming comes from shared semantics BUT…

TIREDFATIGUE

No pure semantic priming.

Also, there are experiments showing the BOSS to be a structural unit in the processing of words like LABEL.

e.g. Taft (2001, 2001)

lab el faster to recognize than

la bel (at least for better readers)

CONCLUSIONS

• Consistency between form and meaning determines the existence of lemmas. When a lemma is clear-cut, it is usually labeled as a “morpheme”, but that decision is arbitrary.

• Words that share form and meaning are activated via the same lemma.

• Words that share only form are activated via the same form unit.

• Phonology is not involved in visual word recognition.

EL

label labour

SEMANTICSSEMANTICS

LAB OUR

LEMMASLEMMAS

ORTHOGRAPHYORTHOGRAPHY

Maybe inhibitory links between competing lemmas:

SEMANTICSSEMANTICS

vir

VIR AL

LEMMASLEMMAS

ORTHOGRAPHYORTHOGRAPHY

viral

US

virus

Perhaps:

Predictions:

Prior presentation of VIRUS

vir

VIRUS

virus

Predictions:

Prior presentation of VIRUS

vir

VIRUS

virus viral

VIR

vir

Prediction:

Prior presentation of VIRUS should facilitate lexical decision responses to VIRAL.

AL

viral vir

VIR

viral

label labour

LABEL

Prior presentation of LABEL

Prediction:

labour

LAB OUR

Prior presentation of LABEL might not facilitate lexical decision responses to LABOUR.

LAB

Prediction: