TY - JOUR A1 - Jessen, Anna A1 - Verissimo, João Marques A1 - Clahsen, Harald T1 - Variability and consistency in late bilinguals’ morphology BT - an ERP production study JF - The mental lexicon N2 - 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. KW - event-related potentials (ERP) KW - plurals in compounds KW - morphological constraints KW - harmonic grammars KW - morphological processing Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1075/ml.18002.jes SN - 1871-1340 SN - 1871-1375 VL - 13 IS - 2 SP - 186 EP - 214 PB - John Benjamins Publishing Co. CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Jacob, Gunnar A1 - Safak, Duygu Fatma A1 - Demir, Orhan A1 - Kirkici, Bilal T1 - Preserved morphological processing in heritage speakers BT - a masked priming study on Turkish JF - Second language research N2 - 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. KW - derivation KW - heritage speakers KW - inflection KW - morphological processing KW - Turkish Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/0267658318764535 SN - 0267-6583 SN - 1477-0326 VL - 35 IS - 2 SP - 173 EP - 194 PB - Sage Publ. CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Clahsen, Harald A1 - Gerth, Sabrina A1 - Heyer, Vera A1 - Schott, Esther T1 - Morphology constrains native and non-native word formation in different ways Evidence from plurals inside compounds JF - The mental lexicon N2 - The role of morphological and syntactic information in non-native second language (L2) comprehension is controversial. Some have argued that late bilinguals rapidly integrate grammatical cues with other information sources during reading or listening in the same way as native speakers. Others claim that structural cues are underused in L2 processing. We examined different kinds of modifiers inside compounds (e.g. singulars vs. plurals, *rat eater vs. rats eater) with respect to this controversy which are subject to both structural and nonstructural constraints. Two offline and two online (eye-movement) experiments were performed examining the role of these constraints in spoken language comprehension of English and German, testing 77 advanced L2 learners. We also compared the L2 groups to corresponding groups of native speakers. Our results suggest that despite native-like sensitivity to the compounding constraints, late bilinguals rely more on non-structural constraints and are less able to revise their initial interpretations than L1 comprehenders. KW - morphological processing KW - compounding KW - visual world paradigm KW - eye movement KW - bilingualism KW - second language Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1075/ml.10.1.03cla SN - 1871-1340 SN - 1871-1375 VL - 10 IS - 1 SP - 53 EP - 87 PB - Benjamins CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - INPR A1 - Jacob, Gunnar T1 - The L2 decomposition of transparent derived verbs - Is it 'morphological'? A commentary on De Grauwe, Lemhofer, Willems, & Schriefers (2014) T2 - Frontiers in human neuroscienc KW - morphological processing KW - derivational affixes KW - decomposition KW - non-native speakers Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2015.00220 SN - 1662-5161 VL - 9 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kirkici, Bilal A1 - Clahsen, Harald T1 - Inflection and derivation in native and non-native language processing - masked priming experiments on Turkish JF - Bilingualism : language and cognition N2 - Much previous experimental research on morphological processing has focused on surface and meaning-level properties of morphologically complex words, without paying much attention to the morphological differences between inflectional and derivational processes. Realization-based theories of morphology, for example, assume specific morpholexical representations for derived words that distinguish them from the products of inflectional or paradigmatic processes. The present study reports results from a series of masked priming experiments investigating the processing of inflectional and derivational phenomena in native (L1) and non-native (L2) speakers in a non-Indo-European language, Turkish. We specifically compared regular (Aorist) verb inflection with deadjectival nominalization, both of which are highly frequent, productive and transparent in Turkish. The experiments demonstrated different priming patterns for inflection and derivation, specifically within the L2 group. Implications of these findings are discussed both for accounts of L2 morphological processing and for the controversial linguistic distinction between inflection and derivation. KW - morphological processing KW - second language KW - late bilinguals Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728912000648 SN - 1366-7289 VL - 16 IS - 4 SP - 776 EP - 791 PB - Cambridge Univ. Press CY - New York ER -