TY - GEN A1 - Veríssimo, Joao Marques A1 - Heyer, Vera A1 - Jacob, Gunnar A1 - Clahsen, Harald T1 - Selective effects of age of acquisition on morphological priming BT - evidence for a sensitive period T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - 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. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 486 KW - visual word recognition KW - 2nd-language acquisition KW - maturational constraints KW - language-acquisition KW - 2nd langauge KW - speech KW - experience KW - perception KW - english Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-412611 SN - 1866-8364 IS - 486 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Verissimo, Joao Marques A1 - Heyer, Vera A1 - Jacob, Gunnar A1 - Clahsen, Harald T1 - Selective effects of age of acquisition on morphological priming BT - evidence for a sensitive period JF - Language acquisition : a journal of developmental linguistics N2 - 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. Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/10489223.2017.1346104 SN - 1048-9223 SN - 1532-7817 VL - 25 IS - 3 SP - 315 EP - 326 PB - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group CY - Abingdon ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Nakano, Yoko A1 - Ikemoto, Yu A1 - Jacob, Gunnar A1 - Clahsen, Harald T1 - How Orthography Modulates Morphological Priming BT - Subliminal Kanji Activation in Japanese JF - Frontiers in psychology N2 - 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. KW - morphologically complex words KW - morpho-orthography KW - decompositon KW - Japanese KW - kanji KW - kana Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00316 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 7 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER - TY - GEN A1 - Nakano, Yoko A1 - Ikemoto, Yu A1 - Jacob, Gunnar A1 - Clahsen, Harald T1 - How Orthography Modulates Morphological Priming BT - Subliminal Kanji Activation in Japanese N2 - 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. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 293 KW - Japanese KW - decompositon KW - kana KW - kanji KW - morpho-orthography KW - morphologically complex words Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-91692 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Nakano, Yoko A1 - Ikemoto, Yu A1 - Jacob, Gunnar A1 - Clahsen, Harald T1 - How Orthography Modulates Morphological Priming: Subliminal Kanji Activation in Japanese JF - Frontiers in psychology N2 - 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. KW - morphologically complex words KW - morpho-orthography KW - decompositon KW - Japanese KW - kanji KW - kana Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00316 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 7 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne 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 - GEN A1 - Jacob, Gunnar A1 - Lago, Sol A1 - Patterson, Clare T1 - L2 processing and memory retrieval: Some empirical and conceptual challenges T2 - Bilingualism : language and cognition. Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728916000948 SN - 1366-7289 SN - 1469-1841 VL - 20 SP - 691 EP - 693 PB - Cambridge Univ. Press CY - New York ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Jacob, Gunnar A1 - Kirkici, Bilal T1 - The processing of morphologically complex words in a specific speaker group A masked-priming study with Turkish heritage speakers JF - The mental lexicon N2 - The present study investigates to what extent morphological priming varies across different groups of native speakers of a language. In two masked-priming experiments, we investigate the processing of morphologically complex Turkish words in Turkish heritage speakers raised and living in Germany. Materials and experimental design were based on Kırkıcı and Clahsen’s (2013) study on morphological processing in Turkish native speakers and L2 learners, allowing for direct comparisons between the three groups. Experiment 1 investigated priming effects for morphologically related prime-target pairs. Heritage speakers showed a similar pattern of results as the L1 comparison group, with significant priming effects for prime-target pairs with inflected primes (e.g. ‘sorar-sor’ asks-ask) as well as for prime-target pairs with derived primes (e.g. ‘sağlık-sağ’ health-healthy). In Experiment 2, we measured priming effects for prime-target pairs which were semantically and morphologically unrelated, but only related with regard to orthographic overlap (e.g. ‘devre-dev’ period-giant). Unlike both L1 speakers raised in Turkey and highly proficient L2 learners, heritage speakers also showed significant priming effects in this condition. Our results suggest that heritage speakers differ from both native speakers and L2 learners in that they rely more on (orthographic) surface form properties of the stimulus during early stages of word recognition, at the expense of morphological decomposition. KW - heritage speakers KW - complex words KW - morphological decomposition KW - masked priming KW - Turkish Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1075/ml.11.2.06jac SN - 1871-1340 SN - 1871-1375 VL - 11 SP - 308 EP - 328 PB - John Benjamins Publishing Co. CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Jacob, Gunnar A1 - Katsika, Kalliopi A1 - Family, Neiloufar A1 - Allen, Shanley E. M. T1 - The role of constituent order and level of embedding in cross-linguistic structural priming JF - Bilingualism : language and cognition N2 - 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. KW - cross-linguistic structural priming KW - constituent order KW - level of embedding KW - hierarchical tree structures Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728916000717 SN - 1366-7289 SN - 1469-1841 VL - 20 SP - 269 EP - 282 PB - Cambridge Univ. Press CY - New York ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Jacob, Gunnar A1 - Heyer, Vera A1 - Verissimo, Joao Marques T1 - Aiming at the same target BT - a masked priming study directly comparing derivation and inflection in the second language JF - International journal of bilingualism : cross-disciplinary, cross-linguistic studies of language behavior N2 - 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. KW - Morphological processing KW - derivation KW - inflection KW - second language (L2) learners KW - masked priming Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/1367006916688333 SN - 1367-0069 SN - 1756-6878 VL - 22 IS - 6 SP - 619 EP - 637 PB - Sage Publ. CY - London ER -