Third International Conference on the Mental Lexicon, Banff, Alberta, Canada, Oct. 6-8, 2002

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Affixal Salience and Affixal Salience and Lexical ProcessingLexical Processing

The Role of Suffix AllomorphyThe Role of Suffix Allomorphy

Juhani JärvikiviJuhani Järvikivi11, Raymond Bertram, Raymond Bertram2 2 && Jussi Jussi NiemiNiemi11

University of JoensuuUniversity of Joensuu1 1 University of TurkuUniversity of Turku22

FinlandFinland

Third International Conference on the Mental Lexicon, Banff, Alberta, Canada, Oct. 6-8, 2002

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The present study investigates:The role of morphological constituents in the

processing of Finnish derived words with several allomorphic stems vs. derived words with an invariant stem.

Third International Conference on the Mental Lexicon, Banff, Alberta, Canada, Oct. 6-8, 2002

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Evidence from Finnish derivations so far: There is not much in terms of morphological

computation (e.g., Niemi et al., 1994, Bertram et al., 2000)

Cross-linguistically, more computation for derived words found in morphologically less productive languages like English (Vannest, Bertram, Järvikivi & Niemi, 2002)

Question: Why is this? Perhaps employed Finnish affixes not salient

enough.

Third International Conference on the Mental Lexicon, Banff, Alberta, Canada, Oct. 6-8, 2002

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Affixal Salience (Laudanna & Burani 1995): The likelihood of an affix to occur as a processing unit in a given language

Affixal Salience is influenced by quantitative and/or distributional factors

such as:- affix length (phonological/orthographic)- affix frequency- confusability: the ratio of a phonological

string serving as a real or pseudo affix, e.g., -er in ’sister – worker’

Third International Conference on the Mental Lexicon, Banff, Alberta, Canada, Oct. 6-8, 2002

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Affixal Salience might also be influenced by linguistic properties such as:

Productivity Semantic coherence Phonological transparency

Perhaps the salience of Finnish affixes was compromized by one or more of the above mentioned factors

Question: Is the lack of computation as found for Finnish derivations due to the use of affixes of low salience?

Third International Conference on the Mental Lexicon, Banff, Alberta, Canada, Oct. 6-8, 2002

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Vannest et al. (2002) found no computation for three Finnish derivational suffixes forming adjectives from noun bases:

-isA: e.g., sotaisa ’warlike, bellicose’

of fairly low productivity, low frequency and also semantically unpredictable

-kAs: e.g., tehokas ’efficient, effective’

moderately frequent but of quite low productivity

-tOn: e.g., peloton ’fearless’

productive but only moderately frequent

Third International Conference on the Mental Lexicon, Banff, Alberta, Canada, Oct. 6-8, 2002

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• Thus:

Maybe computation for Finnish derivations was not observed because of low salience of the suffixes employed

• What we need are more salient suffixes

Third International Conference on the Mental Lexicon, Banff, Alberta, Canada, Oct. 6-8, 2002

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-Us: forms nouns from verbs (cf. English –ing)

e.g., kloonaus ’cloning’

-productive and – different from all other suffixes used so far – highly frequent

-(U)Us: the most productive means of forming nouns from adjectives in Finnish (cf. English –ness)

e.g., juoppous ’drunkenness’

- very productive and highly frequent

(in both respects more salient than any other suffix used so far)

Increasing affix salience

Third International Conference on the Mental Lexicon, Banff, Alberta, Canada, Oct. 6-8, 2002

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MethodMethod

Frequency manipulation (Taft 1979, Vannest et al. 2002)

- first set: Surface Frequency varied, Base Frequency kept constant

- second set: Base Frequency varied, Surface Frequency kept constant

Visual lexical decision

Third International Conference on the Mental Lexicon, Banff, Alberta, Canada, Oct. 6-8, 2002

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Interpretations of Base and Surface Frequency effects:

Traditionally:– Base Frequency Effect: morpheme-based access– No Base Frequency Effect: no morpheme-based

access

– Surface Frequency Effect: whole word access– No Surface Frequency Effect: no whole word

access

Third International Conference on the Mental Lexicon, Banff, Alberta, Canada, Oct. 6-8, 2002

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Traditional Interpretations under fire: Most notably Taft (Nijmegen, 2001) argued that

– no base frequency effect does not necessarily imply that morpheme-based access has not taken place

– Indeed it is possible, that a high-base frequency word like ’moons’ is accessed rapidly via the base ’moon’, but that in a later stage of combining stem and suffix information, processing is slowed down, because of the unusual combination of ’moon + –s’.

– For a low-base frequency word like ’cliffs’, it could be the other way around, slow access of the base, relatively quick combination of stem and suffix information.

– Taken together, this means that in effect the base frequency effect could have been wiped out.

Third International Conference on the Mental Lexicon, Banff, Alberta, Canada, Oct. 6-8, 2002

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In any case, however: we can claim that a) a positive Base Frequency effect means that the

base is accessedb) no base frequency effect means that the

decomposition route is not effective

Frequency manipulation is an adequate experimental tool for testing the processing of derivational morphology

Experiment with the productive and highly frequent deverbal suffix -Us

Third International Conference on the Mental Lexicon, Banff, Alberta, Canada, Oct. 6-8, 2002

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Results XP1: Deverbal Results XP1: Deverbal -Us-Us

640

660

680

700

720

Base Sur

RT

Hi

Lo

Reliable effect of Surface Frequency

No effect of Base Frequency (t1, p > .05, t2 < 1)

Hi Base:688 (5.2 %)

Lo Base:704 (6.8 %)

Hi Sur:650 (1.8 %)

Lo Sur:705 (6.8 %)

Third International Conference on the Mental Lexicon, Banff, Alberta, Canada, Oct. 6-8, 2002

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Then – although highly frequent – perhaps the deverbal –Us is not productive enough after all

Experiment 2 with the highly productive deadjectival suffix -(U)Us (cf., Eng. –ness)

Third International Conference on the Mental Lexicon, Banff, Alberta, Canada, Oct. 6-8, 2002

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Results XP2:Results XP2: -(U)Us-(U)Us

600

620

640

660

680

Base Sur

RT

Hi

Lo

Reliable effect of Surface

Frequency

Apparent effect of Base Frequency in the wrong direction

non-significant in item analysis (t2, p > .1)

Hi Base: 664 (2.9 %) Lo Base: 641 (1.8 %)

Hi Sur: 616 (1.8 %) Lo Sur: 641 (2.0 %)

Third International Conference on the Mental Lexicon, Banff, Alberta, Canada, Oct. 6-8, 2002

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Perhaps Affixal Salience can be compromised in other ways, for instance, when there is non one-to-one relation between form and meaning:

- affixal homonymy (Bertram et al., 2000) e.g., Dutch suffix -er:

- forms agentive nouns and comparatives

-er

FORM

ROWER[agent]

SLOWER [comparative]

SEMANTICS

Third International Conference on the Mental Lexicon, Banff, Alberta, Canada, Oct. 6-8, 2002

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Also in this study there is lack of one-to-one correspondence between form and semantics manifesting itself differently, namely the other way around

affixal allomorphy: for example, Dutch diminutive suffix (Schreuder & Baayen, 1995)

FORM SEMANTICS-pje

-tje

-etje

-je

DIMINUTIVE

Third International Conference on the Mental Lexicon, Banff, Alberta, Canada, Oct. 6-8, 2002

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Suffix allomorphy in Finnish: Suffix allomorphy in Finnish: ExamplesExamples

CASE -tOn (Vannest et al 2002)

-Us (XP1) -(U)Us (XP2)

Nom Sg arvoton räjähdys heikkous

Gen Sg arvottoman räjähdyksen heikkouden

Gen Pl arvottomien räjähdyksien /-ysten

heikkouksien

Ptv Sg arvotonta räjähdystä heikkoutta

Ptv Pl arvottomia räjähdyksiä heikkouksia

Ess Sg arvottomana räjähdyksenä heikkoutena

’worthless’ ’explosion’ ’weakness’

Third International Conference on the Mental Lexicon, Banff, Alberta, Canada, Oct. 6-8, 2002

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General Question: Is affixal salience compromized by suffix

allomorphy?

More specifically: Is the lack of computation for highly productive,

monofunctional suffixes in low surface frequency ranges, such as –Us (-Uks, -Ukse), due to suffix allomorphy?

Affixes that are productive, monofunctional and phonologically transparent

Third International Conference on the Mental Lexicon, Banff, Alberta, Canada, Oct. 6-8, 2002

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Highly productive suffix-hkO: forms moderative adjectives

korkeahko [HIGH + mod] ’quite high, highish’

NO allomorphy

e.g., korkeahko, korkeahkon, korkeahkoa, korkeahkoja, korkeahkona etc.

XP with frequency manipulation

Third International Conference on the Mental Lexicon, Banff, Alberta, Canada, Oct. 6-8, 2002

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Results XP3:Results XP3: -hkO-hkO

600

620

640

660

680

Base Sur

RTHi

Lo

A reliable Surface Frequency effect

In addition: a significant Base Frequency effect

Hi Base: 635 (4.5 %)

Lo Base: 667 (6.9 %) Hi Sur: 619 (3.4 %)

Lo Sur: 643 (6.1 %)

Third International Conference on the Mental Lexicon, Banff, Alberta, Canada, Oct. 6-8, 2002

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However,-hkO: corpus-based index of productivity even higher than for –(U)Us

Possibility that the results were due to extreme productivity of –hkO alone

Experiment with another invariant suffix: -stO: collective nouns kirjasto [BOOK + coll] ’library’

kirjasto, kirjaston, kirjastoa, kirjastoja, etc.- only moderately productive and of comparatively low frequency

Third International Conference on the Mental Lexicon, Banff, Alberta, Canada, Oct. 6-8, 2002

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Results XP4:Results XP4: -stO-stO

650

670

690

710

730

750

Base Sur

RTHi

Lo

A reliable Surface Frequency effect

Again: a significant Base Frequency effect

Hi Base:687 (3.2 %)

Lo Base:738 (6.6 %)

Hi Sur: 677 (4.4 %)

Lo Sur: 709 (9.4 %)

Third International Conference on the Mental Lexicon, Banff, Alberta, Canada, Oct. 6-8, 2002

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In conclusionIn conclusion

Affixal Salience is compromized by suffix allomorphy

In case of many allomorphemic variants (as with both –Us suffixes) affixal salience is decreased and the decomposition process is troubled.

In case of formal invariance (as with the phonologically transparent suffixes –stO and –hkO), suffixes are salient enough to allow effective decomposition