Neural Correlates of Morphology Computation and Representation

Royle, Phaedra; Steinhauer, Karsten

doi:10.1007/978-1-0716-3263-5_14

Cited by 2 publications

References 206 publications

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Shared neural computations for syntactic and morphological structures: evidence from Mandarin Chinese

Yu,

Mancha,

Tian

et al. 2024

Preprint

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What are syntactic relations, and how does our brain infer them from a string of text characters? In the EEG study reported here we aimed to investigate these questions by contrasting syntactically separable compounds (zao4...fan3 -> 'rebel') and non-separable compounds (chi2yi2 -> 'hesitate') in Mandarin Chinese. Because both kinds of compounds have non-compositional meanings, their syntactic differences provide an elegant means for dissociating syntactic from semantic relations. Because non-separable compounds fit the traditional criteria for 'wordhood', this contrast also provides a means for asking whether syntactic and morphological relations are inferred in qualitatively different ways. We found that, relative to non-separable compounds, syntactically separable compounds elicited a left anterior negativity (LAN) effect between 275-400ms. Even though readers were always presented with the compounds in their unseparated form, our results suggest that the potentially separable compound forms drive the inference of a more complex set of underlying syntactic relations. In a companion manipulation in the same participants, we observed a qualitatively similar LAN effect when comparing non-separable compound nouns with simplex nouns. This finding raises doubts for the existence of a clear-cut distinction between 'syntax' and 'morphology', at least in processing.

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Shared neural computations for syntactic and morphological structures: evidence from Mandarin Chinese

Yu,

Mancha,

Tian

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Early Form-Based Morphological Decomposition in Tagalog: MEG Evidence from Reduplication, Infixation, and Circumfixation

Wray

Stockall

Marantz

2022

Neurobiology of Language

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Neuro- and psycholinguistic experimentation supports the early decomposition of morphologically complex words within the ventral processing stream, which MEG has localized to the M170 response in the (left) visual word form area (VWFA). Decomposition into an exhaustive parse of visual morpheme forms extends beyond words like “farmer” to those imitating complexity (e.g. “brother”, Lewis et al. 2011), and to “unique” stems occurring in only one word but following the syntax and semantics of their affix (e.g. “vulnerable”, Gwilliams & Marantz 2018). Evidence comes primarily from suffixation; other morphological processes have been under-investigated. This study explores circumfixation, infixation, and reduplication in Tagalog. In addition to investigating whether these are parsed like suffixation, we address an outstanding question concerning semantically empty morphemes. Some words in Tagalog resemble English “winter” as decomposition is not supported (wint-er); these apparently reduplicated pseudoreduplicates lack the syntactic and semantic features of reduplicated forms. However, unlike “winter,” these words exhibit phonological behavior predicted only if they involve a reduplicating morpheme. If these are decomposed, this provides evidence that words are analyzed as complex, like English “vulnerable”, when the grammar demands it. In a lexical decision task with MEG, we find that VWFA activity correlates with stem:word transition probability for circumfixed, infixed and reduplicated words. Furthermore, a Bayesian analysis suggests that pseudoreduplicates with reduplicate-like phonology are also decomposed; other pseudoreduplicates are not. These findings are consistent with an interpretation that decomposition is modulated by phonology in addition to syntax and semantics.

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Neural Correlates of Morphology Computation and Representation

Cited by 2 publications

References 206 publications

Shared neural computations for syntactic and morphological structures: evidence from Mandarin Chinese

Shared neural computations for syntactic and morphological structures: evidence from Mandarin Chinese

Early Form-Based Morphological Decomposition in Tagalog: MEG Evidence from Reduplication, Infixation, and Circumfixation

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