Morphological structure and semantic retrieval

Abstract The relationship between the effects of morphological complexity and associative production frequency (PF) was investigated in two experiments on sentence verification. Subjects were timed as they evaluated low- and high-PF sentences with predicates containing words that were morphologically either basic or derived (e.g.,Birds have feathers vs.Birds are feathered). In the first experiment sentences with basic predicates were verified more quickly than sentences with derived predicates, and high-PF sentences were verified more quickly than low-PF sentences. The advantage of basic over derived forms was reduced for the high-PF sentences. In the second experiment, the predicate of each sentence (e.g.,are feathered) was presented for 2 sec before the subject word appeared. In this delay condition the basic and derived versions of high-PF sentences were verified equally quickly; but for low-PF sentences, the basic form was still evaluated more quickly. The fact that the effect of morphological complexity was not necessarily eliminated after a delay suggested that the main difficulty of derived forms arises not during initial comprehension, but during a later stage in the comparison of the subject and predicate concepts.

[1]  Noam Chomsky,et al.  Remarks on Nominalization , 2020, Nominalization.

[2]  G. Bower,et al.  Human Associative Memory , 1973 .

[3]  B. J. Winer.  Statistical Principles in Experimental Design , 1992 .

[4]  R. Jackendoff.  Morphological and semantic regularities in the lexicon , 1975 .

[5]  E. Loftus.  Category dominance, instance dominance, and categorization time. , 1973 .

[6]  K. Holyoak,et al.  Production frequency and the verification of quantified statements , 1974 .

[7]  Ray Jackendoff,et al.  Semantic Interpretation in Generative Grammar , 1972 .

[8]  K. Holyoak,et al.  The role of contradictions and counterexamples in the rejection of false sentences , 1975 .

[9]  George Lakoff,et al.  Irregularity In Syntax , 1970 .

[10]  Walter Kintsch.  Abstract nouns: Imagery versus lexical complexity , 1972 .

[11]  George Lakoff.  Linguistics and natural logic , 1970 .

[12]  Lance J. Rips,et al.  Semantic distance and the verification of semantic relations , 1973 .

[13]  H. Kucera,et al.  Computational analysis of present-day American English , 1967 .

[14]  M. Ross Quillian,et al.  Retrieval time from semantic memory , 1969 .

[15]  K. Holyoak,et al.  The effect ofsome andall on reaction time for semantic decisions , 1974, Memory & cognition.

[16]  H. H. Clark.  The language-as-fixed-effect fallacy: A critique of language statistics in psychological research. , 1973 .

[17]  W. Kintsch,et al.  The representation of meaning in memory , 1974 .

[18]  Philip B. Gough,et al.  The verification of sentences: The effects of delay of evidence and sentence length , 1966 .

[19]  R. Lees.  The grammar of English nominalizations , 1960 .

[20]  Carol Conrad.  Cognitive Economy in Semantic Memory. , 1972 .