Evidence for morphological composition at the form level in speech production

We investigated in two picture–word-interference experiments whether there is evidence for composition during compound production (Experiment 1). In Experiment 2, we tried to determine the level at which composition takes place. In Experiment 1, shared morphemes between distractor and target (HANDTASCHE, handbag) sped up naming regardless of category membership: semantically opaque (Plaudertasche, chatterbox) and semantically transparent distractors (Reisetasche, travelling bag) facilitated picture naming to a comparable degree. In Experiment 2, targets (BROTMESSER, bread knife) were combined with a simple word distractor (Kuchen, cake) categorically related to a target compound constituent but not related to the compound as a whole. This target was further paired with a categorically related compound distractor (Kochlöffel, wooden spoon). The simple word distractor was also paired with a categorically related compound constituent (BROT, bread). Whenever distractor (e.g., Kochlöffel, Kuchen) and target (BROTMESSER, BROT, respectively) were categorically related, semantic inhibition was observed. Distractors (e.g., Kuchen) related to only one compound constituent did not affect compound production. Taken together, our results indicate that during compound production a single lemma node is activated and that morphological composition takes place at the form level of representation. Current lexical selection mechanisms in language production models are not supported by these data.

[1]  A. Roelofs,et al.  A spreading-activation theory of lemma retrieval in speaking , 1992, Cognition.

[2]  P. Zwitserlood,et al.  Where and How Morphologically Complex Words Interplay with Naming Pictures , 2002, Brain and Language.

[3]  L. Feldman,et al.  What do graded effects of semantic transparency reveal about morphological processing? , 2004, Brain and Language.

[4]  Bradford Z. Mahon,et al.  Lexical selection is not by competition: a reinterpretation of semantic interference and facilitation effects in the picture-word interference paradigm. , 2007, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[5]  K. Forster,et al.  Lexical storage and retrieval of prefixed words , 1975 .

[6]  Alexander Pollatsek,et al.  The role of semantic transparency in the processing of Finnish compound words , 2005 .

[7]  W. Heij,et al.  Components of Stroop-like interference in picture naming , 1988, Memory & cognition.

[8]  A. Roelofs,et al.  Serial Order in Planning the Production of Successive Morphemes of a Word , 1996 .

[9]  A. Caramazza.  How many levels of processing are there in lexical access , 1997 .

[10]  S. Lupker.  The role of phonetic and orthographic similarity in picture-word interference. , 1982, Canadian journal of psychology.

[11]  Pienie Zwitserlood,et al.  The role of semantic transparency in the processing and representation of Dutch compounds , 1994 .

[12]  William D. Marslen-Wilson,et al.  Differentiating Morphology, Form, and Meaning: Neural Correlates of Morphological Complexity , 2007, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[13]  C. Dobel,et al.  Effects of referential ambiguity, time constraints and addressee orientation on the production of morphologically complex words , 2009 .

[14]  Pienie Zwitserlood,et al.  The impact of semantic transparency of morphologically complex words on picture naming , 2004, Brain and Language.

[15]  S. Andrews,et al.  Eye movements and morphological segmentation of compound words: There is a mouse in mousetrap , 2004 .

[16]  William Badecker,et al.  Stem Homograph Inhibition and Stem Allomorphy: Representing and Processing Inflected Forms in a Multilevel Lexical System☆☆☆ , 1999 .

[17]  Frank Rösler,et al.  When semantics means less than morphology: The processing of German prefixed verbs , 2009 .

[18]  Stephen J. Lupker,et al.  The semantic nature of response competition in the picture-word interference task , 1979 .

[19]  J. Segui,et al.  Morphological priming without morphological relationship , 2003 .

[20]  Randi C. Martin,et al.  Semantic and phonological codes interact in single word production. , 1999, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[21]  William Badecker,et al.  Stem Homographs and Lemma Level Representations , 2002, Brain and Language.

[22]  G S Dell,et al.  A spreading-activation theory of retrieval in sentence production. , 1986, Psychological review.

[23]  H. Schriefers,et al.  Phonological facilitation in picture-word interference experiments: Effects of stimulus onset asynchrony and types of interfering stimuli. , 1991 .

[24]  Laurie Beth Feldman,et al.  Semantic aspects of morphological processing: Transparency effects in Serbian , 2002, Memory & cognition.

[25]  Alissa Melinger,et al.  Semantic context effects in language production: A swinging lexical network proposal and a review , 2009 .

[26]  K. Forster,et al.  Lexical storage and retrieval of polymorphemic and polysyllabic words. , 1976 .

[27]  Ardi Roelofs,et al.  Morphology by itself in planning the production of spoken words , 2002, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[28]  M. F. Garrett,et al.  The Analysis of Sentence Production1 , 1975 .

[29]  A. Caramazza,et al.  Morphological Composition in the Lexical Output System , 1991 .

[30]  David C. Plaut,et al.  Are non-semantic morphological effects incompatible with a distributed connectionist approach to lexical processing? , 2000 .

[31]  Willem J. M. Levelt,et al.  A theory of lexical access in speech production , 1999, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[32]  Gary Libben,et al.  Processing Compounds: A Cross-Linguistic Study , 1999, Brain and Language.

[33]  Gary Libben,et al.  Why Study Compound Processing? An overview of the issues , 2007 .

[34]  W. Glaser,et al.  Context effects in stroop-like word and picture processing. , 1989, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[35]  Gary Libben,et al.  Compound fracture: The role of semantic transparency and morphological headedness , 2003, Brain and Language.

[36]  Y. Benjamini,et al.  Controlling the false discovery rate: a practical and powerful approach to multiple testing , 1995 .

[37]  Antje S. Meyer,et al.  Exploring the time course of lexical access in language production : Picture word interference studies , 1990 .

[38]  R. Baayen,et al.  Frequency effects in compound production. , 2005, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[39]  Alfonso Caramazza,et al.  A tale of two frequencies: Determining the speed of lexical access for Mandarin Chinese and English compounds , 2008 .

[40]  Alfonso Caramazza,et al.  Now You See it, Now you Don't: On Turning Semantic Interference Into Facilitation in a Stroop-Like Task , 2006, Cortex.

[41]  Marcus Taft,et al.  Obligatory decomposition in reading prefixed words , 2006 .

[42]  P. Starreveld,et al.  Time-course analysis of semantic and orthographic context effects in picture naming. , 1996 .

[43]  Scott E. Maxwell,et al.  Designing Experiments and Analyzing Data: A Model Comparison Perspective , 1990 .

[44]  P. Zwitserlood,et al.  Morphological effects on speech production: Evidence from picture naming , 2000 .

[45]  Albert Costa,et al.  On the categorical nature of the semantic interference effect in the picture-word interference paradigm , 2005, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[46]  M. Taft.  Morphological Decomposition and the Reverse Base Frequency Effect , 2004, The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology. A, Human experimental psychology.

[47]  M. Garrett.  Disorders of lexical selection , 1992, Cognition.

[48]  P. Zwitserlood,et al.  A chatterbox is a box: Morphology in German word production , 2006 .