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MORPHOSYNTAX IN THE BILINGUAL MENTAL LEXICON

An Experimental Study of Strong Stems in German

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2014

Helena Krause ,
Sina Bosch  and
Harald Clahsen
Helena Krause
Affiliation:
Potsdam Research Institute for Multilingualism (PRIM), University of Potsdam
Sina Bosch
Affiliation:
Potsdam Research Institute for Multilingualism (PRIM), University of Potsdam
Harald Clahsen*
Affiliation:
Potsdam Research Institute for Multilingualism (PRIM), University of Potsdam
*
*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Harald Clahsen, Potsdam Research Institute for Multilingualism, University of Potsdam, 14476 Potsdam, Germany. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Although morphosyntax has been identified as a major source of difficulty for adult (nonnative) language learners, most previous studies have examined a limited set of largely affix-based phenomena. Little is known about word-based morphosyntax in late bilinguals and of how morphosyntax is represented and processed in a nonnative speaker’s lexicon. To address these questions, we report results from two behavioral experiments investigating stem variants of strong verbs in German (which encode features such as tense, person, and number) in groups of advanced adult learners as well as native speakers of German. Although the late bilinguals were highly proficient in German, the results of a lexical priming experiment revealed clear native-nonnative differences. We argue that lexical representation and processing relies less on morphosyntactic information in a nonnative than in a native language.

Type
Articles
Information
Studies in Second Language Acquisition , Volume 37 , Issue 4 , December 2015 , pp. 597 - 621
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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