Mismatch negativity effects of alternating vowels in morphologically complex word forms

Abstract

a b s t r a c tIn some languages, morphologically complex word forms may involve vowel alternations between front and back phonemes, as illustrated in the German noun Stock (Stock~Stöcke 'stick~sticks') versus the non-alternating Stoff (Stoff~Stoffe 'cloth~cloths'). This study was aimed to investigate the consequences of the presence or absence of these alternations for the fine structure of lexical representations. Previous research has shown that certain vowel oppositions are processed in an asymmetric way, as studied by means of brain electric activity (e.g. Eulitz & Lahiri, 2004). Here, we contrasted base form and diminutive stems of German nouns in a Mismatch Negativity (MMN) study. We compared the alternating noun Stock with non-alternating Stoff and obtained a consistently stronger MMN if Stoff was preceded by a fronted stem. This was an initial stem fragment in Experiment 1 and its diminutive form in Experiment 2. The results of our experiments indicate asymmetries in processing at the phonetics/morpho-phonology interface and are discussed on the background of several models of lexical representation and morphological processing. We conjecture that our findings are best explained by differences in abstract phonological representations.

Neuromagnetic evidence for a featural distinction of English consonants: Sensor- and source-space data

“…We leave it open for future research whether the theoretical assumptions regarding the PoA of English glides and fricatives have to be revised, or whether the Mismatch Negativity may not be the best or most direct way to assess the assumption of coronal underspecification for consonants. Note that previous work on vowels showed Mismatch Negativity results that were compatible with FUL’s predictions (Eulitz & Lahiri, 2004; Scharinger, Eulitz, Lahiri, 2010). At this point we cannot completely reconcile these findings, a synthesis subsuming both sets of results will almost certainly require additional MMN studies.…”

Context and perceptual asymmetry effects on the mismatch negativity (MMNm) to speech sounds: an MEG study

“…we therefore propose that the explanations put forth by the proponents of the FUL (Lahiri & Reetz, 2002; fit our findings and the asymmetries in the linguistic MMN literature the best. In this relation, a number of studies have found support for [coronal] as an underspecified place of articulation feature in German for both plosives and vowels (Cornell et al, 2011;Eulitz & Lahiri, 2004;Scharinger et al, 2010;2012a), and in English for plosives and fricatives (Cummings et al, 2017;Schluter et al, 2016), and, as already mentioned, for [voice] as an underspecified laryngeal feature in English (Hestvik & Durvasula, 2016;Phillips et al, 2000). To these findings, our present study adds an investigation of the laryngeal feature…”

“…compare "lea [m] bacon" (instead of "lea[n] bacon") with "la [m]e duck" (and not "la[n]e duck") (examples are from Lahiri & Reetz, 2002;Scharinger, Bendixen, Trujillo-Barreto, & Obleser, 2012a). Using the MMN to probe predictions from the FUL framework, several studies have found asymmetries in the MMN to English, German and Dutch stimuli in support of certain underspecified phonological features (Cornell, Lahiri, & Eulitz, 2011;Cummings, Madden, & Hefta, 2017;Diesch & Luce, 1997;Eulitz & Lahiri, 2004;Hestvik & Durvasula, 2016;Scharinger et al, 2012a;Scharinger, Lahiri, & Eulitz, 2010;Schluter, Politzer-Ahles, & Almeida, 2016;Walter & Hacquard, 2004). However, Scharinger et al (2011) reported nonsupportive findings, Tavabi et al (2009) only found partially supportive effects, and Bonte et al (2005) found evidence of a phonotactic effect rather than of underspecification.…”

Auditory Discrimination Between Function Words in Children and Adults: A Mismatch Negativity Study

“…First, the stimuli were matched in terms of the fundamental frequency, overall duration and intensity (for details, see section Materials ). Second, an enhanced and earlier MMN during the processing of phonemic contrasts was primarily observed in experiments with “coronal” sounds deviating from the series of “dorsal” sounds than in case of dorsal deviants (Eulitz and Lahiri, 2004 ; Scharinger et al, 2010 , 2012 ). This was not the case in the present study, in which the processing of the coronal [n] in den was associated with a smaller MMN in children and a later MMN in adults, as compared to dorsal [ ] in der .…”