TY - GEN A1 - Ciaccio, Laura Anna A1 - Burchert, Frank A1 - Semenza, Carlo T1 - Derivational morphology in agrammatic aphasia BT - a comparison between prefixed and suffixed words T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Although a relatively large number of studies on acquired language impairments have tested the case of derivational morphology, none of these have specifically investigated whether there are differences in how prefixed and suffixed derived words are impaired. Based on linguistic and psycholinguistic considerations on prefixed and suffixed derived words, differences in how these two types of derivations are processed, and consequently impaired, are predicted. In the present study, we investigated the errors produced in reading aloud simple, prefixed, and suffixed words by three German individuals with agrammatic aphasia (NN, LG, SA). We found that, while NN and LG produced similar numbers of errors with prefixed and suffixed words, SA showed a selective impairment for prefixed words. Furthermore, NN and SA produced more errors specifically involving the affix with prefixed words than with suffixed words. We discuss our findings in terms of relative position of stem and affix in prefixed and suffixed words, as well as in terms of specific properties of prefixes and suffixes. KW - Broca’s aphasia KW - morphological decomposition KW - morphological errors KW - derivation KW - prefixes Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-473995 SN - 1866-8364 IS - 648 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ciaccio, Laura Anna A1 - Burchert, Frank A1 - Semenza, Carlo T1 - Derivational morphology in agrammatic aphasia BT - a comparison between prefixed and suffixed words JF - Frontiers in Psychology N2 - Although a relatively large number of studies on acquired language impairments have tested the case of derivational morphology, none of these have specifically investigated whether there are differences in how prefixed and suffixed derived words are impaired. Based on linguistic and psycholinguistic considerations on prefixed and suffixed derived words, differences in how these two types of derivations are processed, and consequently impaired, are predicted. In the present study, we investigated the errors produced in reading aloud simple, prefixed, and suffixed words by three German individuals with agrammatic aphasia (NN, LG, SA). We found that, while NN and LG produced similar numbers of errors with prefixed and suffixed words, SA showed a selective impairment for prefixed words. Furthermore, NN and SA produced more errors specifically involving the affix with prefixed words than with suffixed words. We discuss our findings in terms of relative position of stem and affix in prefixed and suffixed words, as well as in terms of specific properties of prefixes and suffixes. KW - Broca’s aphasia KW - morphological decomposition KW - morphological errors KW - derivation KW - prefixes Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01070 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 11 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ciaccio, Laura Anna A1 - Veríssimo, João T1 - Investigating variability in morphological processing with Bayesian distributional models JF - Psychonomic bulletin & review : a journal of the Psychonomic Society N2 - We investigated the processing of morphologically complex words adopting an approach that goes beyond estimating average effects and allows testing predictions about variability in performance. We tested masked morphological priming effects with English derived ('printer') and inflected ('printed') forms priming their stems ('print') in non-native speakers, a population that is characterized by large variability. We modeled reaction times with a shifted-lognormal distribution using Bayesian distributional models, which allow assessing effects of experimental manipulations on both the mean of the response distribution ('mu') and its standard deviation ('sigma'). Our results show similar effects on mean response times for inflected and derived primes, but a difference between the two on the sigma of the distribution, with inflectional priming increasing response time variability to a significantly larger extent than derivational priming. This is in line with previous research on non-native processing, which shows more variable results across studies for the processing of inflected forms than for derived forms. More generally, our study shows that treating variability in performance as a direct object of investigation can crucially inform models of language processing, by disentangling effects which would otherwise be indistinguishable. We therefore emphasize the importance of looking beyond average performance and testing predictions on other parameters of the distribution rather than just its central tendency. KW - RT distribution KW - Distributional models KW - Masked priming KW - Visual word KW - recognition KW - Morphological processing Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-022-02109-w SN - 1069-9384 SN - 1531-5320 SP - 2264 EP - 2274 PB - Springer CY - New York ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ciaccio, Laura Anna A1 - Kgolo, Naledi A1 - Clahsen, Harald T1 - Morphological decomposition in Bantu BT - a masked priming study on Setswana prefixation JF - Language, cognition and neuroscience N2 - African languages have rarely been the subject of psycholinguistic experimentation. The current study employs a masked visual priming experiment to investigate morphological processing in a Bantu language, Setswana. Our study takes advantage of the rich system of prefixes in Bantu languages, which offers the opportunity of testing morphological priming effects from prefixed inflected words and directly comparing them to priming effects from prefixed derived words on the same targets. We found significant priming effects of similar magnitude for both prefixed inflected and derived word forms, which were clearly dissociable from prime-target relatedness in both meaning and (orthographic) form. These findings provide support for a (possibly universal) mechanism of morphological decomposition applied during early visual word recognition that segments both (prefixed) inflected and derived word forms into their morphological constituents. KW - prefixes KW - inflection KW - affix stripping KW - visual word recognition KW - African KW - languages Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/23273798.2020.1722847 SN - 2327-3798 SN - 2327-3801 VL - 35 IS - 10 SP - 1257 EP - 1271 PB - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group CY - Abingdon ER - TY - GEN A1 - Ciaccio, Laura Anna A1 - Gunnar, Jacob T1 - Native speakers like affixes, L2 speakers like letters? BT - An overt visual priming study investigating the role of orthography in L2 morphological processing T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Philosophische Reihe N2 - In an overt visual priming experiment, we investigate the role of orthography in native (L1) and non-native (L2) processing of German morphologically complex words. We compare priming effects for inflected and derived morphologically related prime-target pairs versus otherwise matched, purely orthographically related pairs. The results show morphological priming effects in both the L1 and L2 group, with no significant difference between inflection and derivation. However, L2 speakers, but not L1 speakers, also showed significant priming for orthographically related pairs. Our results support the claim that L2 speakers focus more on surface-level information such as orthography during visual word recognition. This can cause orthographic priming effects in morphologically related prime-target pairs, which may conceal L1-L2 differences in morphological processing. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Philosophische Reihe - 169 Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-444617 SN - 1866-8380 IS - 169 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ciaccio, Laura Anna A1 - Jacob, Gunnar T1 - Native speakers like affixes, L2 speakers like letters? BT - An overt visual priming study investigating the role of orthography in L2 morphological processing JF - PLoS one N2 - In an overt visual priming experiment, we investigate the role of orthography in native (L1) and non-native (L2) processing of German morphologically complex words. We compare priming effects for inflected and derived morphologically related prime-target pairs versus otherwise matched, purely orthographically related pairs. The results show morphological priming effects in both the L1 and L2 group, with no significant difference between inflection and derivation. However, L2 speakers, but not L1 speakers, also showed significant priming for orthographically related pairs. Our results support the claim that L2 speakers focus more on surface-level information such as orthography during visual word recognition. This can cause orthographic priming effects in morphologically related prime-target pairs, which may conceal L1-L2 differences in morphological processing. Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0226482 SN - 1932-6203 VL - 14 IS - 12 PB - PLoS CY - San Fransisco ER - TY - THES A1 - Ciaccio, Laura Anna T1 - Prefixed words in morphological processing and morphological impairments N2 - In recent years, a substantial number of psycholinguistic studies and of studies on acquired language impairments have investigated the case of morphologically complex words. These have provided evidence for what is known as ‘morphological decomposition’, i.e. a mechanism that decomposes complex words into their constituent morphemes during online processing. This is believed to be a fundamental, possibly universal mechanism of morphological processing, operating irrespective of a word’s specific properties. However, current accounts of morphological decomposition are mostly based on evidence from suffixed words and compound words, while prefixed words have been comparably neglected. At the same time, it has been consistently observed that, across languages, prefixed words are less widespread than suffixed words. This cross-linguistic preference for suffixing morphology has been claimed to be grounded in language processing and language learning mechanisms. This would predict differences in how prefixed words are processed and therefore also affected in language impairments, challenging the predictions of the major accounts of morphological decomposition. Against this background, the present thesis aims at reducing the gap between the accounts of morphological decomposition and the accounts of the suffixing preference, by providing a thorough empirical investigation of prefixed words. Prefixed words are examined in three different domains: (i) visual word processing in native speakers; (ii) visual word processing in non-native speakers; (iii) acquired morphological impairments. The processing studies employ the masked priming paradigm, tapping into early stages of visual word recognition. Instead, the studies on morphological impairments investigate the errors produced in reading aloud tasks. As for native processing, the present work first focuses on derivation (Publication I), specifically investigating whether German prefixed derived words, both lexically restricted (e.g. inaktiv ‘inactive’) and unrestricted (e.g. unsauber ‘unclean’) can be efficiently decomposed. I then present a second study (Publication II) on a Bantu language, Setswana, which offers the unique opportunity of testing inflectional prefixes, and directly comparing priming with prefixed inflected primes (e.g. dikgeleke ‘experts’) to priming with prefixed derived primes (e.g. bokgeleke ‘talent’). With regard to non-native processing (Publication I), the priming effects obtained from the lexically restricted and unrestricted prefixed derivations in native speakers are additionally compared to the priming effects obtained in a group of non-native speakers of German. Finally, in the two studies on acquired morphological impairments, the thesis investigates whether prefixed derived words yield different error patterns than suffixed derived words (Publication III and IV). For native speakers, the results show evidence for morphological decomposition of both types of prefixed words, i.e. lexically unrestricted and restricted derivations, as well as of prefixed inflected words. Furthermore, non-native speakers are also found to efficiently decompose prefixed derived words, with parallel results to the group of native speakers. I therefore conclude that, for the early stages of visual word recognition, the relative position of stem and affix in prefixed versus suffixed words does not affect how efficiently complex words are decomposed, either in native or in non-native processing. In the studies on acquired language impairments, instead, prefixes are consistently found to be more impaired than suffixes. This is explained in terms of a learnability disadvantage for prefixed words, which may cause weaker representations of the information encoded in affixes when these precede the stem (prefixes) as compared to when they follow it (suffixes). Based on the impairment profiles of the individual participants and on the nature of the task, this dissociation is assumed to emerge from later processing stages than those that are tapped into by masked priming. I therefore conclude that the different characteristics of prefixed and suffixed words do come into play at later processing stages, during which the lexical-semantic information contained in the different constituent morphemes is processed. The findings presented in the four manuscripts significantly contribute to our current understanding of the mechanisms involved in processing prefixed words. Crucially, the thesis constrains the processing disadvantage for prefixed words to later processing stages, thereby suggesting that theories trying to establish links between language universals and processing mechanisms should more carefully consider the different stages involved in language processing and what factors are relevant for each specific stage. N2 - In den letzten Jahren haben viele psycholinguistische Studien und Studien über erworbene Sprachstörungen das Thema morphologisch komplexe Wörter untersucht. Diese Studien haben darauf hingewiesen, dass komplexe Wörter während der Sprachverarbeitung in ihre Bestandteile (Morpheme) zerlegt werden. Die aktuelle Evidenz basiert jedoch meist auf Untersuchungen von suffigierten Wörtern und zusammengesetzten Wörtern (Komposita), während präfigierte Wörter vergleichsweise vernachlässigt wurden. Präfigierte Wörter sind sprachübergreifend weniger verbreitet als suffigierte Wörter. Es wurde behauptet, dass diese Präferenz für suffigierte Wörter in den ihnen zu Grunde liegenden Sprachverarbeitungs- und Sprachlernmechanismen begründet ist. Dies würde Unterschiede in der Art und Weise voraussagen, wie präfigierte und suffigierte Wörter verarbeitet werden und daher auch bei Sprachbeeinträchtigungen betroffen sind. Vor diesem Hintergrund liefert diese Dissertation eine gründliche empirische Untersuchung von präfigierten Wörtern in drei verschiedenen Bereichen: (i) visueller Worterkennung bei MuttersprachlerInnen; (ii) visueller Worterkennung bei Nicht-MuttersprachlerInnen; (iii) erworbenen morphologischen Störungen. Die Verarbeitungsstudien verwenden das Paradigma des maskierten Primings, während in den Studien zu morphologischen Störungen die Fehler analysiert werden, die beim Lautlesen einzelner Wörter entstehen. Für MuttersprachlerInnen konzentriert sich die Arbeit zuerst auf den Fall abgeleiteter Wörter (Publikation I), wobei insbesondere untersucht wird, ob lexikalisch eingeschränkte (z.B. inaktiv) und uneingeschränkte (z.B. unsauber) abgeleitete präfigierte Wörter effizient zerlegt werden können. Dann werden flektierte präfigierte Wörter in der Bantu-Sprache Setswana untersucht (Publikation II), mit dem Ziel, Priming-Effekte für flektierte (z.B. dikgeleke 'Experten') und abgeleitete (bokgeleke 'Talent') präfigierte Wörter zu vergleichen. Die Ergebnisse zeigen Hinweise auf effiziente morphologische Zerlegung von präfigierten Wörtern, sowohl für lexikalisch uneingeschränkte und eingeschränkte Ableitungen als auch für flektierte präfigierte Wörter. Im Hinblick auf die Verarbeitung durch Nicht-MuttersprachlerInnen (Publikation I) werden zusätzlich die Priming-Effekte, die für lexikalisch eingeschränkte und uneingeschränkte präfigierte Ableitungen bei MuttersprachlerInnen erzielt werden, mit den Priming-Effekten verglichen, die bei einer Gruppe von Nicht-MuttersprachlerInen des Deutschen erzielt werden. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass auch Nicht-MuttersprachlerInnen in der Lage sind, präfigierte Wörter effizient zu verarbeiten, mit parallelen Ergebnissen zur Gruppe der MuttersprachlerInnen. Schließlich wird in zwei Studien zu erworbenen morphologischen Störungen untersucht, ob präfigierte abgeleitete Wörter andere Fehlermuster ergeben als suffigierte abgeleitete Wörter (Publikation III und IV). Die Ergebnisse der beiden Studien zeigen, dass Präfixe stärker beeinträchtigt sind als Suffixe. Dies wird mit einem Lernfähigkeitsnachteil für präfigierte Wörter erklärt, der dazu führt, dass die in Affixen kodierten Informationen schwächer dargestellt werden, wenn diese vor dem Wortstamm stehen (Präfixe), als wenn sie ihm folgen (Suffixe). Insgesamt schließt man aus den Ergebnissen der Dissertation, dass in den frühen Phasen der visuellen Worterkennung, die die Methode des maskierten Primings untersucht, präfigierte Wörter genauso effizient verarbeitet werden können wie suffigierte Wörter, sowohl von MuttersprachlerInnen als auch von Nicht-MuttersprachlerInnen. Im Gegensatz dazu spielen die unterschiedlichen Eigenschaften von präfigierten Wörtern und suffigierten Wörtern in den Sprachverarbeitungsphasen, die die Studien zu morphologischen Störungen untersuchen, durchaus eine Rolle. Hier handelt es sich um spätere Phasen der Sprachverarbeitung, in denen die in den Morphemen enthaltenen lexikalisch-semantischen Informationen verarbeitet werden. Somit beschränkt die Dissertation Nachteile in der Verarbeitung von präfigierten Wörtern auf spätere Verarbeitungsphasen und deutet damit an, dass Theorien, welche Verbindungen zwischen Sprachuniversalien und Verarbeitungsmechanismen herstellen, die verschiedenen Phasen der Sprachverarbeitung und die für jede spezifische Phase relevanten Faktoren sorgfältiger berücksichtigen sollten. T2 - Präfigierte Wörter in der morphologischen Verarbeitung und bei morphologischen Störungen KW - morphology KW - Morphologie KW - visual word recognition KW - visuelle Worterkennung KW - morphological impairments KW - morphologische Störungen Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-484651 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ciaccio, Laura Anna A1 - Clahsen, Harald T1 - Variability and consistency in first and second language processing BT - A masked morphological priming study on prefixation and suffixation JF - Language Learning N2 - Word forms such as walked or walker are decomposed into their morphological constituents (walk + -ed/-er) during language comprehension. Yet, the efficiency of morphological decomposition seems to vary for different languages and morphological types, as well as for first and second language speakers. The current study reports results from a visual masked priming experiment focusing on different types of derived word forms (specifically prefixed vs. suffixed) in first and second language speakers of German. We compared the present findings with results from previous studies on inflection and compounding and proposed an account of morphological decomposition that captures both the variability and the consistency of morphological decomposition for different morphological types and for first and second language speakers. Open Practices This article has been awarded an Open Materials badge. Study materials are publicly accessible via the Open Science Framework at . Learn more about the Open Practices badges from the Center for Open Science: . KW - prefixed words KW - derivation KW - second language processing KW - masked priming KW - morphology Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/lang.12370 SN - 0023-8333 SN - 1467-9922 VL - 70 IS - 1 SP - 103 EP - 136 PB - Wiley CY - Hoboken ER - TY - GEN A1 - Ciaccio, Laura Anna A1 - Clahsen, Harald T1 - Variability and consistency in first and second language processing BT - A masked morphological priming study on prefixation and suffixation T2 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Word forms such as walked or walker are decomposed into their morphological constituents (walk + -ed/-er) during language comprehension. Yet, the efficiency of morphological decomposition seems to vary for different languages and morphological types, as well as for first and second language speakers. The current study reports results from a visual masked priming experiment focusing on different types of derived word forms (specifically prefixed vs. suffixed) in first and second language speakers of German. We compared the present findings with results from previous studies on inflection and compounding and proposed an account of morphological decomposition that captures both the variability and the consistency of morphological decomposition for different morphological types and for first and second language speakers. Open Practices This article has been awarded an Open Materials badge. Study materials are publicly accessible via the Open Science Framework at . Learn more about the Open Practices badges from the Center for Open Science. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 869 KW - prefixed words KW - derivation KW - second language processing KW - masked priming KW - morphology Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-517727 SN - 1866-8364 IS - 1 ER -