Refine
Year of publication
Document Type
- Article (35)
- Doctoral Thesis (9)
- Postprint (9)
- Other (2)
- Monograph/Edited Volume (1)
Is part of the Bibliography
- yes (56) (remove)
Keywords
- morphology (56) (remove)
Institute
- Department Linguistik (25)
- Institut für Physik und Astronomie (8)
- Institut für Chemie (7)
- Humanwissenschaftliche Fakultät (4)
- Institut für Biochemie und Biologie (4)
- Multilingualism (3)
- Potsdam Research Institute for Multilingualism (PRIM) (3)
- Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät (2)
- Department Psychologie (1)
- Institut für Germanistik (1)
In organic solar cells, the resulting device efficiency depends strongly on the local morphology and intermolecular interactions of the blend film. Optical spectroscopy was used to identify the spectral signatures of interacting chromophores in blend films of the donor polymer PM6 with two state-of-the-art nonfullerene acceptors, Y6 and N4, which differ merely in the branching point of the side chain. From temperature-dependent absorption and luminescence spectroscopy in solution, it is inferred that both acceptor materials form two types of aggregates that differ in their interaction energy. Y6 forms an aggregate with a predominant J-type character in solution, while for N4 molecules the interaction is predominantly in a H-like manner in solution and freshly spin-cast film, yet the molecules reorient with respect to each other with time or thermal annealing to adopt a more J-type interaction. The different aggregation behavior of the acceptor materials is also reflected in the blend films and accounts for the different solar cell efficiencies reported with the two blends.
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.
Glyco-assemblies derived from amphiphilic sugar-decorated block copolymers (ASBCs) have emerged prominently due to their wide application, for example, in biomedicine and as drug carriers. However, to efficiently construct these glyco-assemblies is still a challenge. Herein, we report an efficient technology for the synthesis of glyco-inside nano-assemblies by utilizing RAFT polymerization of a galactose-decorated methacrylate for polymerization-induced self-assembly (PISA). Using this approach, a series of highly ordered glyco-inside nano-assemblies containing intermediate morphologies were fabricated by adjusting the length of the hydrophobic glycoblock and the polymerization solids content. A specific morphology of complex vesicles was captured during the PISA process and the formation mechanism is explained by the morphology of its precursor and intermediate. Thus, this method establishes a powerful route to fabricate glyco-assemblies with tunable morphologies and variable sizes, which is significant to enable the large-scale fabrication and wide application of glyco-assemblies.
The urban heat island (UHI) effect, describing an elevated temperature of urban areas compared with their natural surroundings, can expose urban dwellers to additional heat stress, especially during hot summer days. A comprehensive understanding of the UHI dynamics along with urbanization is of great importance to efficient heat stress mitigation strategies towards sustainable urban development. This is, however, still challenging due to the difficulties of isolating the influences of various contributing factors that interact with each other. In this work, I present a systematical and quantitative analysis of how urban intrinsic properties (e.g., urban size, density, and morphology) influence UHI intensity.
To this end, we innovatively combine urban growth modelling and urban climate simulation to separate the influence of urban intrinsic factors from that of background climate, so as to focus on the impact of urbanization on the UHI effect. The urban climate model can create a laboratory environment which makes it possible to conduct controlled experiments to separate the influences from different driving factors, while the urban growth model provides detailed 3D structures that can be then parameterized into different urban development scenarios tailored for these experiments. The novelty in the methodology and experiment design leads to the following achievements of our work.
First, we develop a stochastic gravitational urban growth model that can generate 3D structures varying in size, morphology, compactness, and density gradient. We compare various characteristics, like fractal dimensions (box-counting, area-perimeter scaling, area-population scaling, etc.), and radial gradient profiles of land use share and population density, against those of real-world cities from empirical studies. The model shows the capability of creating 3D structures resembling real-world cities. This model can generate 3D structure samples for controlled experiments to assess the influence of some urban intrinsic properties in question. [Chapter 2]
With the generated 3D structures, we run several series of simulations with urban structures varying in properties like size, density and morphology, under the same weather conditions. Analyzing how the 2m air temperature based canopy layer urban heat island (CUHI) intensity varies in response to the changes of the considered urban factors, we find the CUHI intensity of a city is directly related to the built-up density and an amplifying effect that urban sites have on each other. We propose a Gravitational Urban Morphology (GUM) indicator to capture the neighbourhood warming effect. We build a regression model to estimate the CUHI intensity based on urban size, urban gross building volume, and the GUM indicator. Taking the Berlin area as an example, we show the regression model capable of predicting the CUHI intensity under various urban development scenarios. [Chapter 3]
Based on the multi-annual average summer surface urban heat island (SUHI) intensity derived from Land surface temperature, we further study how urban intrinsic factors influence the SUHI effect of the 5,000 largest urban clusters in Europe. We find a similar 3D GUM indicator to be an effective predictor of the SUHI intensity of these European cities. Together with other urban factors (vegetation condition, elevation, water coverage), we build different multivariate linear regression models and a climate space based Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) model that can better predict SUHI intensity. By investigating the roles background climate factors play in modulating the coefficients of the GWR model, we extend the multivariate linear model to a nonlinear one by integrating some climate parameters, such as the average of daily maximal temperature and latitude. This makes it applicable across a range of background climates. The nonlinear model outperforms linear models in SUHI assessment as it captures the interaction of urban factors and the background climate. [Chapter 4]
Our work reiterates the essential roles of urban density and morphology in shaping the urban thermal environment. In contrast to many previous studies that link bigger cities with higher UHI intensity, we show that cities larger in the area do not necessarily experience a stronger UHI effect. In addition, the results extend our knowledge by demonstrating the influence of urban 3D morphology on the UHI effect. This underlines the importance of inspecting cities as a whole from the 3D perspective. While urban 3D morphology is an aggregated feature of small-scale urban elements, the influence it has on the city-scale UHI intensity cannot simply be scaled up from that of its neighbourhood-scale components. The spatial composition and configuration of urban elements both need to be captured when quantifying urban 3D morphology as nearby neighbourhoods also cast influences on each other. Our model serves as a useful UHI assessment tool for the quantitative comparison of urban intervention/development scenarios. It can support harnessing the capacity of UHI mitigation through optimizing urban morphology, with the potential of integrating climate change into heat mitigation strategies.
The macroscale function of multicomponent polymeric materials is dependent on their phase-morphology. Here, we investigate the morphological structure of a multiblock copolymer consisting of poly(L-lactide) and poly(epsilon-caprolactone) segments (PLLA-PCL), physically cross-linked by stereocomplexation with a low molecular weight poly(D-lactide) oligomer (PDLA). The effects of blend composition and PLLA-PCL molecular structure on the morphology are elucidated by AFM, TEM and SAXS. We identify the formation of a lattice pattern, composed of PLA domains within a PCL matrix, with an average domain spacing d0 = 12 - 19 nm. The size of the PLA domains were found to be proportional to the block length of the PCL segment of the copolymer and inversely proportional to the PDLA content of the blend. Changing the PLLA-PCL / PDLA ratio caused a shift in the melt transition Tm attributed to the PLA stereocomplex crystallites, indicating partial amorphous phase dilution of the PLA and PCL components within the semicrystalline material. By elucidating the phase structure and thermal character of multifunctional PLLA-PCL / PDLA blends, we illustrate how composition affects the internal structure and thermal properties of multicomponent polymeric materials. This study should facilitate the more effective incorporation of a variety of polymeric structural units capable of stimuli responsive phase transitions, where an understanding the phase-morphology of each component will enable the production of multifunctional soft-actuators with enhanced performance.
Previous research has shown that heritage speakers struggle with inflectional morphology. 'Limitations of online resources' for processing a non-dominant language has been claimed as one possible reason for these difficulties. To date, however, there is very little experimental evidence on real-time language processing in heritage speakers. Here we report results from a masked priming experiment with 97 bilingual (Turkish/German) heritage speakers and a control group of 40 non-heritage speakers of Turkish examining regular and irregular forms of the Turkish aorist. We found that, for the regular aorist, heritage speakers use the same morphological decomposition mechanism ('affix stripping') as control speakers, whereas for processing irregularly inflected forms they exhibited more variability (i.e., less homogeneous performance) than the control group. Heritage speakers also demonstrated semantic priming effects. At a more general level, these results indicate that heritage speakers draw on multiple sources of information for recognizing morphologically complex words.
The present work investigated how morphological generalization, namely the way speakers extend their knowledge to novel complex words, is influenced by sources of variability in language and speaker properties. For this purpose, the study focused on a Semitic language (Hebrew), characterized by unique non-concatenative morphology, and native ( L1) as well as non-native (L2) speakers. Two elicited production tasks tested what information sources speakers employ in verbal inflectional class generalization, i.e., in forming complex novel verbs. Phonological similarity was tested in Experiment 1 and argument structure in Experiment 2. The analysis focused on the two most common Hebrew inflectional classes, Paal and Piel, which also constituted the vast majority of responses in the two tasks. Unlike the commonly found outcomes in Romance inflectional class generalization, the results yielded, solely for Piel, a graded phonological similarity effect and a robust argument structure effect, i.e., more Piel responses in a direct object context than without. The L2 pattern partially differed from the L1: (i) argument structure effect for L2 speakers was weaker, and (ii) L2 speakers produced more Paal than Piel responses. The results are discussed within the framework of rule-based and input-based accounts.
This study examines the processing of morphologically complex words focusing on how morphological (in addition to orthographic and semantic) factors affect bilingual word recognition. We report findings from a large experimental study with groups of bilingual (Turkish/German) speakers using the visual masked-priming technique. We found morphologically mediated effects on the response speed and the inter-individual variability within the bilingual participant group. We conclude that the grammar (qua morphological parsing) not only enhances speed of processing in bilingual language processing but also yields more uniform performance and thereby constrains variability within a group of otherwise heterogeneous individuals.
Organic bulk heterojunction (BHJ) solar cells require energetic offsets between the donor and acceptor to obtain high short-circuit currents (J(SC)) and fill factors (FF). However, it is necessary to reduce the energetic offsets to achieve high open-circuit voltages (V-OC). Recently, reports have highlighted BHJ blends that are pushing at the accepted limits of energetic offsets necessary for high efficiency. Unfortunately, most of these BHJs have modest FF values. How the energetic offset impacts the solar cell characteristics thus remains poorly understood. Here, a comprehensive characterization of the losses in a polymer:fullerene BHJ blend, PIPCP:phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PC61BM), that achieves a high V-OC (0.9 V) with very low energy losses (E-loss = 0.52 eV) from the energy of absorbed photons, a respectable J(SC) (13 mA cm(-2)), but a limited FF (54%) is reported. Despite the low energetic offset, the system does not suffer from field-dependent generation and instead it is characterized by very fast nongeminate recombination and the presence of shallow traps. The charge-carrier losses are attributed to suboptimal morphology due to high miscibility between PIPCP and PC61BM. These results hold promise that given the appropriate morphology, the J(SC), V-OC, and FF can all be improved, even with very low energetic offsets.
Do properties of individual languages shape the mechanisms by which they are processed? By virtue of their non-concatenative morphological structure, the recognition of complex words in Semitic languages has been argued to rely strongly on morphological information and on decomposition into root and pattern constituents. Here, we report results from a masked priming experiment in Hebrew in which we contrasted verb forms belonging to two morphological classes, Paal and Piel, which display similar properties, but crucially differ on whether they are extended to novel verbs. Verbs from the open-class Piel elicited familiar root priming effects, but verbs from the closed-class Paal did not. Our findings indicate that, similarly to other (e.g., Indo-European) languages, down-to-the-root decomposition in Hebrew does not apply to stems of non-productive verbal classes. We conclude that the Semitic word processor is less unique than previously thought: Although it operates on morphological units that are combined in a non-linear way, it engages the same universal mechanisms of storage and computation as those seen in other languages.
ShapeRotator
(2018)
The quantification of complex morphological patterns typically involves comprehensive shape and size analyses, usually obtained by gathering morphological data from all the structures that capture the phenotypic diversity of an organism or object. Articulated structures are a critical component of overall phenotypic diversity, but data gathered from these structures are difficult to incorporate into modern analyses because of the complexities associated with jointly quantifying 3D shape in multiple structures. While there are existing methods for analyzing shape variation in articulated structures in two-dimensional (2D) space, these methods do not work in 3D, a rapidly growing area of capability and research. Here, we describe a simple geometric rigid rotation approach that removes the effect of random translation and rotation, enabling the morphological analysis of 3D articulated structures. Our method is based on Cartesian coordinates in 3D space, so it can be applied to any morphometric problem that also uses 3D coordinates (e.g., spherical harmonics). We demonstrate the method by applying it to a landmark-based dataset for analyzing shape variation using geometric morphometrics. We have developed an R tool (ShapeRotator) so that the method can be easily implemented in the commonly used R package geomorph and MorphoJ software. This method will be a valuable tool for 3D morphological analyses in articulated structures by allowing an exhaustive examination of shape and size diversity.
The review describes how morphological priming can be utilised to study the processing of morphologically complex words in bilinguals. The article starts with an overview of established experimental paradigms based on morphological priming, discusses a number of basic methodological pitfalls with regard to experimental design and materials, then reviews previous L2 morphological priming studies, and concludes with a brief discussion of recent developments in the field as well as possible future directions.
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.
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: .
Previous research with younger adults has revealed differences between native (L1) and non-native late-bilingual (L2) speakers with respect to how morphologically complex words are processed. This study examines whether these L1/L2 differences persist into old age. We tested masked-priming effects for derived and inflected word forms in older L1 and L2 speakers of German and compared them to results from younger L1 and L2 speakers on the same experiment (mean ages: 62 vs. 24). We found longer overall response times paired with better accuracy scores for older (L1 and L2) participants than for younger participants. The priming patterns, however, were not affected by chronological age. While both L1 and L2 speakers showed derivational priming, only the L1 speakers demonstrated inflectional priming. We argue that general performance in both L1 and L2 is affected by aging, but that the more profound differences between native and non-native processing persist into old age.
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).
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.
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).
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.
Salt marshes filter pollutants, protect coastlines against storm surges, and sequester carbon, yet are under threat from sea level rise and anthropogenic modification. The sustained existence of the salt marsh ecosystem depends on the topographic evolution of marsh platforms. Quantifying marsh platform topography is vital for improving the management of these valuable landscapes. The determination of platform boundaries currently relies on supervised classification methods requiring near-infrared data to detect vegetation, or demands labour-intensive field surveys and digitisation. We propose a novel, unsupervised method to reproducibly isolate salt marsh scarps and platforms from a digital elevation model (DEM), referred to as Topographic Identification of Platforms (TIP). Field observations and numerical models show that salt marshes mature into subhorizontal platforms delineated by subvertical scarps. Based on this premise, we identify scarps as lines of local maxima on a slope raster, then fill landmasses from the scarps upward, thus isolating mature marsh platforms. We test the TIP method using lidar-derived DEMs from six salt marshes in England with varying tidal ranges and geometries, for which topographic platforms were manually isolated from tidal flats. Agreement between manual and unsupervised classification exceeds 94% for DEM resolutions of 1 m, with all but one site maintaining an accuracy superior to 90% for resolutions up to 3 m. For resolutions of 1 m, platforms detected with the TIP method are comparable in surface area to digitised platforms and have similar elevation distributions. We also find that our method allows for the accurate detection of local block failures as small as 3 times the DEM resolution. Detailed inspection reveals that although tidal creeks were digitised as part of the marsh platform, unsupervised classification categorises them as part of the tidal flat, causing an increase in false negatives and overall platform perimeter. This suggests our method may benefit from combination with existing creek detection algorithms. Fallen blocks and high tidal flat portions, associated with potential pioneer zones, can also lead to differences between our method and supervised mapping. Although pioneer zones prove difficult to classify using a topographic method, we suggest that these transition areas should be considered when analysing erosion and accretion processes, particularly in the case of incipient marsh platforms. Ultimately, we have shown that unsupervised classification of marsh platforms from high-resolution topography is possible and sufficient to monitor and analyse topographic evolution.