Book contents
- Morphological Diversity and Linguistic Cognition
- Morphological Diversity and Linguistic Cognition
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- 1 At the Intersection of Cognitive Processes and Linguistic Diversity
- Part I In What Ways Is Language Processing Tuned to the Morphological Structure of a Language?
- 2 Tuning Language Processing Mechanisms to a Language’s Morphology without Decomposition: The Case of Semantic Transparency
- 3 Productivity Effects on Morphological Processing in Maltese Auditory Word Recognition
- 4 Phonotactic and Morphological Effects in the Acceptability of Pseudowords
- Part II What Role Does Cue Informativity Play in Learning and How the Lexicon Evolves Over Time?
- Part III How Do System-Level Principles of Morphological Organization Emerge?
- References
- Language Index
- General Index
4 - Phonotactic and Morphological Effects in the Acceptability of Pseudowords
from Part I - In What Ways Is Language Processing Tuned to the Morphological Structure of a Language?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 May 2022
- Morphological Diversity and Linguistic Cognition
- Morphological Diversity and Linguistic Cognition
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- 1 At the Intersection of Cognitive Processes and Linguistic Diversity
- Part I In What Ways Is Language Processing Tuned to the Morphological Structure of a Language?
- 2 Tuning Language Processing Mechanisms to a Language’s Morphology without Decomposition: The Case of Semantic Transparency
- 3 Productivity Effects on Morphological Processing in Maltese Auditory Word Recognition
- 4 Phonotactic and Morphological Effects in the Acceptability of Pseudowords
- Part II What Role Does Cue Informativity Play in Learning and How the Lexicon Evolves Over Time?
- Part III How Do System-Level Principles of Morphological Organization Emerge?
- References
- Language Index
- General Index
Summary
We develop a large set of pseudowords that systematically varies length and phonotactic probability and obtain acceptability ratings using an online interface. We find that phonotactic likelihood and the presence of an apparent morphological parse both significantly predict acceptability; pseudowords containing known morphemes are more acceptable than otherwise comparable pseudowords that do not. We find support for the conjecture that novel words with apparent morphology are advantaged as additions to the lexicon. The resulting lexicon, as observed, is one in which long words are not a random sampling of phonotactically acceptable wordforms, but instead tend to be completely or partially decomposable into morphemes.
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- Morphological Diversity and Linguistic Cognition , pp. 79 - 112Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022
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