Gunnar Jacob

Reanalysis and semantic persistence in native and non-native garden-path recovery.

We report the results from an eye-movement monitoring study investigating how native and non-native speakers of English process temporarily ambiguous sentences such as While the gentleman was eating the burgers were still being reheated in the microwave, in which an initially plausible direct-object analysis is first ruled out by a syntactic disambiguation (were) and also later on by semantic information (being reheated). Both participant groups showed garden-path effects at the syntactic disambiguation, with native speakers showing significantly stronger effects of ambiguity than non-native speakers in later eye-movement measures but equally strong effects in first-pass reading times. Ambiguity effects at the semantic disambiguation and in participants’ end-of-trial responses revealed that for both participant groups, the incorrect direct-object analysis was frequently maintained beyond the syntactic disambiguation. The non-native group showed weaker reanalysis effects at the syntactic disambiguation and was more likely to misinterpret the experimental sentences than the native group. Our results suggest that native language (L1) and non-native language (L2) parsing are similar with regard to sensitivity to syntactic and semantic error signals, but different with regard to processes of reanalysis.

Allomorphy and affixation in morphological processing: A cross-modal priming study with late bilinguals

This study presents results from a cross-modal priming experiment investigating inflected verb forms of German. A group of late learners of German with Russian as their native language (L1) was compared to a control group of German L1 speakers. The experiment showed different priming patterns for the two participant groups. The L1 German data yielded a stem-priming effect for inflected forms involving regular affixation and a partial priming effect for irregular forms irrespective of stem allomorphy. By contrast, the data from the late bilinguals showed reduced priming effects for both regular and irregular forms. We argue that late learners rely more on lexically stored inflected word forms during word recognition and less on morphological parsing than native speakers.

Selective Effects of Age of Acquisition on Morphological Priming: Evidence for a Sensitive Period

ABSTRACT Is there an ideal time window for language acquisition after which nativelike representation and processing are unattainable? Although this question has been heavily debated, no consensus has been reached. Here, we present evidence for a sensitive period in language development and show that it is specific to grammar. We conducted a masked priming task with a group of Turkish-German bilinguals and examined age of acquisition (AoA) effects on the processing of complex words. We compared a subtle but meaningful linguistic contrast, that between grammatical inflection and lexical-based derivation. The results showed a highly selective AoA effect on inflectional (but not derivational) priming. In addition, the effect displayed a discontinuity indicative of a sensitive period: Priming from inflected forms was nativelike when acquisition started before the age of 5 but declined with increasing AoA. We conclude that the acquisition of morphological rules expressing morphosyntactic properties is constrained by maturational factors.

Aiming at the same target: A masked priming study directly comparing derivation and inflection in the second language:

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: We compared the processing of morphologically complex derived vs. inflected forms in native speakers of German and highly proficient native Russian second language (L2) learners of German. Design/methodology/approach: We measured morphological priming effects for derived and inflected German words. To ensure that priming effects were genuinely morphological, the design also contained semantic and orthographic control conditions. Data and analysis: 40 native speakers of German and 36 native Russian learners of L2 German participated in a masked-priming lexical-decision experiment. For both participant groups, priming effects for derived vs. inflected words were compared using linear mixed effects models. Findings/conclusions: While first language (L1) speakers showed similar facilitation effects for both derived and inflected primes, L2 speakers showed a difference between the two prime types, with robust priming effects only for derived, but not for inflected forms. Originality: Unlike in previous studies investigating derivation and inflection in L2 processing, priming effects for derived and inflected prime–target pairs were determined on the basis of the same target word, allowing for a direct comparison between the two morphological phenomena. In this respect, this is the first study to directly compare the processing of derived vs. inflected forms in L2 speakers. Significance/implications: The results are inconsistent with accounts predicting general L1/L2 differences for all types of morphologically complex forms as well as accounts assuming that L1 and L2 processing are based on the same mechanisms. We discuss theoretical implications for L2 processing mechanisms, and propose an explanation which can account for the data pattern.

The role of constituent order and level of embedding in cross-linguistic structural priming

In two cross-linguistic priming experiments with native German speakers of L2 English, we investigated the role of constituent order and level of embedding in cross-linguistic structural priming. In both experiments, significant priming effects emerged only if prime and target were similar with regard to constituent order and also situated on the same level of embedding. We discuss our results on the basis of two current theoretical accounts of cross-linguistic priming, and conclude that neither an account based on combinatorial nodes nor an account assuming that constituent order is directly responsible for the priming effect can fully explain our data pattern. We suggest an account that explains cross-linguistic priming through a hierarchical tree representation. This representation is computed during processing of the prime, and can influence the formulation of a target sentence only when the structural features specified in it are grammatically correct in the target sentence.

How Orthography Modulates Morphological Priming: Subliminal Kanji Activation in Japanese

The current study investigates to what extent masked morphological priming is modulated by language-particular properties, specifically by its writing system. We present results from two masked priming experiments investigating the processing of complex Japanese words written in less common (moraic) scripts. In Experiment 1, participants performed lexical decisions on target verbs; these were preceded by primes which were either (i) a past-tense form of the same verb, (ii) a stem-related form with the epenthetic vowel -i, (iii) a semantically-related form, and (iv) a phonologically-related form. Significant priming effects were obtained for prime types (i), (ii), and (iii), but not for (iv). This pattern of results differs from previous findings on languages with alphabetic scripts, which found reliable masked priming effects for morphologically related prime/target pairs of type (i), but not for non-affixal and semantically-related primes of types (ii), and (iii). In Experiment 2, we measured priming effects for prime/target pairs which are neither morphologically, semantically, phonologically nor - as presented in their moraic scripts—orthographically related, but which—in their commonly written form—share the same kanji, which are logograms adopted from Chinese. The results showed a significant priming effect, with faster lexical-decision times for kanji-related prime/target pairs relative to unrelated ones. We conclude that affix-stripping is insufficient to account for masked morphological priming effects across languages, but that language-particular properties (in the case of Japanese, the writing system) affect the processing of (morphologically) complex words.

Preserved morphological processing in heritage speakers: A masked priming study on Turkish:

In a masked morphological priming experiment, we compared the processing of derived and inflected morphologically complex Turkish words in heritage speakers of Turkish living in Berlin and in native speakers of Turkish raised and living in Turkey. The results show significant derivational and inflectional priming effects of a similar magnitude in the heritage group and the control group. For both participant groups, semantic and orthographic control conditions indicate that these priming effects are genuinely morphological in nature, and cannot be due to semantic or orthographic similarity between prime and target. These results suggest that morphological processing in heritage speakers is based on the same fundamental processing mechanisms as in prototypical native speakers. We conclude that heritage speakers, despite the fact that they have acquired the language in a particular setting and were exposed to a relatively limited amount of input, can nevertheless develop native-like processing mechanisms for complex words.

The L2 decomposition of transparent derived verbs - Is it 'morphological'? A commentary on De Grauwe, Lemhöfer, Willems, & Schriefers (2014).

Assume you come across a morphologically-complex Japanese word such as “.” Even if you have absolutely no knowledge of Japanese at all, and are therefore completely insensitive to the words morphological structure, you might still be able to distinguish between the stem “” and the affix “.” This is because in Japanese, stems are typically written in Kanji, while affixes are written in Hiragana, with the surface form differences between these two scripts being distinct enough that they might even be noticeable for someone without any knowledge of Japanese. As a result, you might actually be able to “decompose” the word, but this decomposition process obviously does not operate on morphological units. Instead, you simply make use of the fact that, in addition to being morphological units, the head “” and the affix “” also constitute units on a completely different level; they are at the same time also orthographic units. How is this (admittedly rather far-fetched) example related to De Grauwe et al. (2014) study on morphological decomposition in non-native (L2) speakers? In their fMRI experiment, De Grauwe and colleagues convincingly show that L2 speakers of Dutch, just as native speakers, are able to decompose transparent derived verbs such as “opstaan” into the head “staan” and the modifier “op.” Based on these findings, the authors argue against accounts of L2 morphological processing which assume qualitative differences between native speakers and L2 speakers with regard to morphological decomposition. In De Grauwes study, stems and affixes were of course not written in different scripts. However, just as in the Japanese example, the head “staan” and the modifier “op” in a Dutch word such as “opstaan” are not only morphological units, but also constitute units on other linguistic levels. First, at least for the vast majority of the materials used in De Grauwes study, head and modifier are also existing lexical units. Specifically, “op” is a Dutch preposition, while “staan” is a verb. For separable verbs (which constitute 55 out of 70 verbs used in the experiment), this is actually the case by default, assuming that such verbs are either “phrasal constructs” (Booij, 1990) or derived through incorporation of a preposition into a verb (Van Riemsdijk, 1978). As a result, modifiers in separable verbs automatically also have to be existing words of their own. Second, “op” and “staan” also constitute syntactic units (Booij, 2002). While verbs are usually syntactic islands (i.e., a syntactic operation such as inflection is normally conducted on the entire verb), separable verbs are an exception to this; for example, in order to produce a grammatically correct Dutch sentence based on the verb “opstaan,” such as “Marie staat op,” the formulator has to separate head and modifier, and subsequently perform different syntactic operations (e.g., inflecting the head, moving each unit to its correct position in the sentence) on each of the two. Thus, while the effects reported in De Grauwes study presumably involve a form of decomposition, the particular properties of the derived verbs used in the study raise the question whether this decomposition mechanism really operates on morphological units. In other words, even a parser which is completely insensitive to morphology might be able to decompose “opstaan” into “op” and “staan,” provided that it has access to either information about syntactic properties of separable verbs or to a lexicon which contains separate entries for “op” and “staan.” A possible counter-argument against this is based on the particular area for which the decomposition effect occurred in the fMRI study. De Grauwe and colleagues correctly point out that the effect occurred in the LIFG, an area which, in several previous papers, has been found to play a role in morphological decomposition. However, it could simply be that the LIFG is generally involved in all sorts of decomposition processes. The same knife can theoretically be used to cut all sorts of different things into pieces. Given these particular linguistic properties of their materials, how does De Grauwes study relate to the current debate about L1/L2 differences in morphological processing? While previous behavioral studies investigating the L2 processing of derived forms (e.g., Silva and Clahsen, 2008; Clahsen and Neubauer, 2010; Diependaele et al., 2011; Kirkici and Clahsen, 2013) have come to different conclusions about L2 processing, all of these studies have discussed their findings with reference to the early morpho-orthographic segmentation mechanism proposed by Rastle et al. (2004) and Marslen-Wilson (2007). Crucially, this account assumes a decomposition mechanism which operates specifically on morphological units (in Rastles case, morphemes; in Marslen-Wilsons case, affixes). Unlike De Grauwe and colleagues, the L2 studies mentioned above used derived forms in which stems and affixes constitute units only at the morphological level, and also, through appropriate control conditions, went to great lengths to ensure that priming effects are morphological in nature. Thus, while De Grauwe and colleagues interpret their findings as evidence against L1/L2 differences, the linguistic properties of their materials make it difficult to discuss their findings with reference to these previous studies. In this respect, behavioral studies which have found similar priming effects for derived forms in L1 and L2 speakers (e.g., Diependaele et al., 2011) can possibly be considered more direct evidence against the idea of fundamental differences between L1 and L2 processing. Additionally, de Grauwes study also differs from these previous studies with regard to the methodological approach (long-lag priming vs. masked priming) and with regard to the possible role of the L1 in L2 processing (all stimuli were Dutch/German cognates), making the studies difficult to compare. Importantly, these issues do not diminish De Grauwes contribution to the field in any way. Their fMRI study quite convincingly shows that L2 speakers do not have a general problem with the decomposition mechanism per se. Also, De Grauwes claims about the processing of the particular class of verbs investigated in the study, and the lack of fundamental L1-L2 differences with regard to these verbs, remain valid. The key question is whether these findings can be generalized from this particular verb class to all derivations, or whether such verbs possess specific linguistic properties which make them uniquely different from other types of morphologically-complex forms. Hence, it would be interesting to see whether L2 speakers show similar effects for types of morphologically-complex words in which stems and affixes only constitute units at the morphological level, such as derived nominalizations or even inflected forms.