@article{JessenVerissimoClahsen2019,
  author    = {Jessen, Anna and Verissimo, Jo{\~a}o Marques and Clahsen, Harald},
  title     = {Variability and consistency in late bilinguals' morphology},
  series = {The mental lexicon},
  volume    = {13},
  journal   = {The mental lexicon},
  number    = {2},
  publisher = {John Benjamins Publishing Co.},
  address   = {Amsterdam},
  issn      = {1871-1340},
  doi       = {10.1075/ml.18002.jes},
  pages     = {186 -- 214},
  year      = {2019},
  abstract  = {Speaking a late-learned second language (L2) is supposed to yield more variable and less consistent output than speaking one's first language (L1), particularly with respect to reliably adhering to grammatical morphology. The current study investigates both internal processes involved in encoding morphologically complex words - by recording event-related brain potentials (ERPs) during participants' silent productions - and the corresponding overt output. We specifically examined compounds with plural or singular modifiers in English. Thirty-one advanced L2 speakers of English (L1: German) were compared to a control group of 20 L1 English speakers from an earlier study. We found an enhanced (right-frontal) negativity during (silent) morphological encoding for compounds produced from regular plural forms relative to compounds formed from irregular plurals, replicating the ERP effect obtained for the L1 group. The L2 speakers' overt productions, however, were significantly less consistent than those of the L1 speakers on the same task. We suggest that L2 speakers employ the same mechanisms for morphological encoding as L1 speakers, but with less reliance on grammatical constraints than L1 speakers.},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Farhy2019,
  author    = {Farhy, Yael},
  title     = {Universals and particulars in morphology},
  doi       = {10.25932/publishup-47003},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-470033},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {VI, 167},
  year      = {2019},
  abstract  = {For many years, psycholinguistic evidence has been predominantly based on findings from native speakers of Indo-European languages, primarily English, thus providing a rather limited perspective into the human language system. In recent years a growing body of experimental research has been devoted to broadening this picture, testing a wide range of speakers and languages, aiming to understanding the factors that lead to variability in linguistic performance. The present dissertation investigates sources of variability within the morphological domain, examining how and to what extent morphological processes and representations are shaped by specific properties of languages and speakers. Firstly, the present work focuses on a less explored language, Hebrew, to investigate how the unique non-concatenative morphological structure of Hebrew, namely a non-linear combination of consonantal roots and vowel patterns to form lexical entries (L-M-D + CiCeC = limed 'teach'), affects morphological processes and representations in the Hebrew lexicon. Secondly, a less investigated population was tested: late learners of a second language. We directly compare native (L1) and non-native (L2) speakers, specifically highly proficient and immersed late learners of Hebrew. Throughout all publications, we have focused on a morphological phenomenon of inflectional classes (called binyanim; singular: binyan), comparing productive (class Piel, e.g., limed 'teach') and unproductive (class Paal, e.g., lamad 'learn') verbal inflectional classes. By using this test case, two psycholinguistic aspects of morphology were examined: (i) how morphological structure affects online recognition of complex words, using masked priming (Publications I and II) and cross-modal priming (Publication III) techniques, and (ii) what type of cues are used when extending morpho-phonological patterns to novel complex forms, a process referred to as morphological generalization, using an elicited production task (Publication IV). The findings obtained in the four manuscripts, either published or under review, provide significant insights into the role of productivity in Hebrew morphological processing and generalization in L1 and L2 speakers. Firstly, the present L1 data revealed a close relationship between productivity of Hebrew verbal classes and recognition process, as revealed in both priming techniques. The consonantal root was accessed only in the productive class (Piel) but not the unproductive class (Paal). Another dissociation between the two classes was revealed in the cross-modal priming, yielding a semantic relatedness effect only for Paal but not Piel primes. These findings are taken to reflect that the Hebrew mental representations display a balance between stored undecomposable unstructured stems (Paal) and decomposed structured stems (Piel), in a similar manner to a typical dual-route architecture, showing that the Hebrew mental lexicon is less unique than previously claimed in psycholinguistic research. The results of the generalization study, however, indicate that there are still substantial differences between inflectional classes of Hebrew and other Indo-European classes, particularly in the type of information they rely on in generalization to novel forms. Hebrew binyan generalization relies more on cues of argument structure and less on phonological cues. Secondly, clear L1/L2 differences were observed in the sensitivity to abstract morphological and morpho-syntactic information during complex word recognition and generalization. While L1 Hebrew speakers were sensitive to the binyan information during recognition, expressed by the contrast in root priming, L2 speakers showed similar root priming effects for both classes, but only when the primes were presented in an infinitive form. A root priming effect was not obtained for primes in a finite form. These patterns are interpreted as evidence for a reduced sensitivity of L2 speakers to morphological information, such as information about inflectional classes, and evidence for processing costs in recognition of forms carrying complex morpho-syntactic information. Reduced reliance on structural information cues was found in production of novel verbal forms, when the L2 group displayed a weaker effect of argument structure for Piel responses, in comparison to the L1 group. Given the L2 results, we suggest that morphological and morphosyntactic information remains challenging for late bilinguals, even at high proficiency levels.},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{StutterGarcia2019,
  author    = {Stutter Garcia, Ana},
  title     = {The use of grammatical knowledge in an additional language},
  doi       = {10.25932/publishup-46932},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-469326},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {xviii, 340},
  year      = {2019},
  abstract  = {This thesis investigates whether multilingual speakers' use of grammatical constraints in an additional language (La) is affected by the native (L1) and non-native grammars (L2) of their linguistic repertoire. Previous studies have used untimed measures of grammatical performance to show that L1 and L2 grammars affect the initial stages of La acquisition. This thesis extends this work by examining whether speakers at intermediate levels of La proficiency, who demonstrate mature untimed/offline knowledge of the target La constraints, are differentially affected by their L1 and L2 knowledge when they comprehend sentences under processing pressure. With this purpose, several groups of La German speakers were tested on word order and agreement phenomena using online/timed measures of grammatical knowledge. Participants had mirror distributions of their prior languages and they were either L1English/L2Spanish speakers or L1Spanish/L2English speakers. Crucially, in half of the phenomena the target La constraint aligned with English but not with Spanish, while in the other half it aligned with Spanish but not with English. Results show that the L1 grammar plays a major role in the use of La constraints under processing pressure, as participants displayed increased sensitivity to La constraints when they aligned with their L1, and reduced sensitivity when they did not. Further, in specific phenomena in which the L2 and La constraints aligned, increased L2 proficiency resulted in an enhanced sensitivity to the La constraint. These findings suggest that both native and non-native grammars affect how speakers use La grammatical constraints under processing pressure. However, L1 and L2 grammars differentially influence on participants' performance: While L1 constraints seem to be reliably recruited to cope with the processing demands of real-time La use, proficiency in an L2 can enhance sensitivity to La constraints only in specific circumstances, namely when L2 and La constraints align.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{FarhyVerissimo2019,
  author    = {Farhy, Yael and Verissimo, Joao Marques},
  title     = {Semantic Effects in Morphological Priming: The Case of Hebrew Stems},
  series = {Language and speech},
  volume    = {62},
  journal   = {Language and speech},
  number    = {4},
  publisher = {Sage Publ.},
  address   = {London},
  issn      = {0023-8309},
  doi       = {10.1177/0023830918811863},
  pages     = {737 -- 750},
  year      = {2019},
  abstract  = {To what extent is morphological representation in different languages dependent on semantic information? Unlike Indo-European languages, the Semitic mental lexicon has been argued to be purely "morphologically driven", with complex stems represented in a decomposed format (root + vowel pattern) irrespectively of their semantic properties. We have examined this claim by comparing cross-modal root-priming effects elicited by Hebrew verbs of a productive, open-ended class (Piel) and verbs of a closed-class (Paal). Morphological priming effects were obtained for both verb types, but prime-target semantic relatedness interacted with class, and only modulated responses following Paal, but not Piel primes. We explain these results by postulating different types of morpho-lexical representation for the different classes: structured stems, in the case of Piel, and whole-stems (which lack internal morphological structure), in the case of Paal. We conclude that semantic effects in morphological priming are also obtained in Semitic languages, but they are crucially dependent on type of morpho-lexical representation.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{FarhyVerissimoClahsen2018,
  author    = {Farhy, Yael and Verissimo, Joao Marques and Clahsen, Harald},
  title     = {Do late bilinguals access pure morphology during word recognition?},
  series = {Bilingualism : language and cognition},
  volume    = {21},
  journal   = {Bilingualism : language and cognition},
  number    = {5},
  publisher = {Cambridge Univ. Press},
  address   = {New York},
  issn      = {1366-7289},
  doi       = {10.1017/S1366728918000032},
  pages     = {945 -- 951},
  year      = {2018},
  abstract  = {This study extends research on morphological processing in late bilinguals to a rarely examined language type, Semitic, by reporting results from a masked-priming experiment with 58 non-native, advanced, second-language (L2) speakers of Hebrew in comparison with native (L1) speakers. We took advantage of a case of 'pure morphology' in Hebrew, the so-called binyanim, which represent (essentially arbitrary) morphological classes for verbs. Our results revealed a non-native priming pattern for the L2 group, with root-priming effects restricted to non-finite prime words irrespective of binyanim type. We conclude that root extraction in L2 Hebrew word recognition is less sensitive to both morphological and morphosyntactic cues than in the L1, in line with the Shallow-Structure Hypothesis of L2 processing.},
  language  = {en}
}
@misc{ClahsenJessen2019,
  author    = {Clahsen, Harald and Jessen, Anna},
  title     = {Do bilingual children lag behind?},
  series = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe},
  journal   = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe},
  number    = {682},
  issn      = {1866-8364},
  doi       = {10.25932/publishup-46972},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-469727},
  pages     = {27},
  year      = {2019},
  abstract  = {The current study investigates how bilingual children encode and produce morphologically complex words. We employed a silent-production-plus-delayed-vocalization paradigm in which event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded during silent encoding of inflected words which were subsequently cued to be overtly produced. The bilingual children's spoken responses and their ERPs were compared to previous datasets from monolingual children on the same task. We found an enhanced negativity for regular relative to irregular forms during silent production in both bilingual children's languages, replicating the ERP effect previously obtained from monolingual children. Nevertheless, the bilingual children produced more morphological errors (viz. over-regularizations) than monolingual children. We conclude that mechanisms of morphological encoding (as measured by ERPs) are parallel for bilingual and monolingual children, and that the increased over-regularization rates are due to their reduced exposure to each of the two languages (relative to monolingual children).},
  language  = {en}
}