Morphological Decomposition in the Processing of Portuguese Words and Pseudowords: The Role of Suffix Salience and Numerosity
Studies conducted in different languages using different tasks and techniques have provided evidence for morphological decomposition at early stage of visual word recognition of complex words. Several issues remain, however, open due mainly to the lack of control of the characteristics of the morpho...
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| Format: | Dissertation |
| Language: | English |
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ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
01-01-2019
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| Online Access: | Get full text |
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| Summary: | Studies conducted in different languages using different tasks and techniques have provided evidence for morphological decomposition at early stage of visual word recognition of complex words. Several issues remain, however, open due mainly to the lack of control of the characteristics of the morphological constituents of those words (e.g., frequency of the roots and suffixes) which could have affected the results. In this study we present a lexical decision experiment performed by 48 undergraduate students from Minho University aimed to examine the role of the suffix-numerosity (i.e., how many words ends with a given letter string - e.g., ice, ite) and suffix-salience (i.e., in how many words that letter string [e.g., ice, ite] is a suffix) in the visual word recognition of Portuguese words (e.g., aldrabice) and pseudowords (e.g., calvite, calvaca). Pseudowords were made up of real roots (e.g., calv[o]) combined with high- and lownumerosity suffixes and high- and low-salience suffixes, giving rise to four experimental conditions (e.g., for the root alert[a]: alertaco; alertebre; alertite; alertenta). Ninety-six words made up of high-numerosity suffixes with high- and low-salience suffixes were also used (e.g., nojice, rebeldia, respectively), giving rise to two experimental conditions. Results from repeated measures ANOVAs revealed longer response times and more errors for pseudowords composed by letter strings that frequently are real endings in Portuguese words, as expected. However, conversely to the predictions, pseudowords made up of letter strings that most of the times constitute real suffixes in Portuguese words, facilitated (and not hindered) pseudoword processing. For words, participants were faster and more accurate when recognizing words with high- than low-salient suffixes, as expected. Results were discussed attending to the current models of morphological processing. |
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| ISBN: | 9798480630664 |