Morphological Processing

In this paper we investigated the effects of certain extra-linguistic and linguistic factors on semantic transparency, dealing with denominal suffixed verbs in Standard Modern Greek. Ninety-six AUTh students, native speakers of Greek aged from 18 to 25, participated in a semantic relatedness rating task for 308 word pairs; each pair comprised a (pseudo)suffixed verb and its (putative) noun base. As far as participants are concerned, we found a significant effect of faculty type (theoretical/practical), but no effect of sex. Regarding the lexical items, lemma and word frequency of both the suffixed verb and the noun base positively affects only semantically transparent pairs. Moreover, morphological family size of the verb has a significant positive effect only on semitransparent pairs. On the other hand, no difference was found among individual verb-forming suffixes. Τhe dissociation of semantically transparent pairs along with the significantly greater standard deviations of semitransparent pairs point rather to a dual route account of semantic transparency, without necessarily excluding a continuous/graded account.

A large body of morphological processing research refers to the role of semantic transparency in late visual word recognition. In the absence of semantic transparency effects, it has been claimed that all morphologically complex words are decomposed, irrespective of meaning (Smolka et al., 2009). Conversely, semantic transparency effects indicate late decomposition for semantically transparent but not for semantically opaque complex words (Rastle & Merkx, 2011). Furthermore, graded effects of semantic transparency have been reported (Feldman et al., 2004; Xu & Taft, 2015). Interestingly, semantic transparency effects in late morphological processing seem to correlate with cross-linguistic differences (Smolka et al., 2009), since they are typically detected in morphologically impoverished, concatenative languages (e.g., English) but not in morphologically rich, non-concatenative languages (e.g., Hebrew).
The present study examines the parameter of semantic transparency in derivational morphology of Modern Greek (MG), an Indo-European (IE) language that is described as both morphologically rich and concatenative (Ralli, 2005). Specifically, we deal with denominal suffixed verbs and adjectives, aiming to investigate whether semantic transparency affects late morphological processing and –if this is the case– whether semantic transparency effects are “all-or-none” or graded. To test these hypotheses, we conducted a visual lexical decision experiment, employing the overt priming paradigm with 250 ms prime-target stimulus of asynchrony (SOA), which is considered to tap into late intra-modal processing.
Forty eight university students participated in the experiment. Ninety morphologically related prime-target pairs, each comprising a (pseudo-)derived prime and a (putative) noun-base target, were equally distributed in three semantic transparency conditions (transparent, e.g., ψηφίζω /psi'fizo/ ‘to vote’ – ψήφος /'psifos/ ‘vote’; semitransparent, e.g., στολίζω /sto'lizo/ ‘to decorate’ – στολή /sto'li/ ‘costume’; opaque, e.g., θυμίζω /θi'mizo/ ‘to remind’ – θυμός /θi'mos/ ‘anger’), according to mean rating scores from three semantic relatedness pretests. Critical primes and targets were matched across conditions for several extraneous variables (e.g., length, lemma and word frequency, syllable and bigram frequency, prime-target formal similarity, orthographic neighborhood size, uniqueness point, morphological family size, grammatical category, inflectional and derivational suffixes). Critical stimuli along with 90 control primes (matched to critical primes but morphologically, orthographically and semantically unrelated to targets) were divided into two counterbalancing lists in a Latin square design, so that each participant was exposed to all priming conditions but saw each target only once. Moreover, each list included 180 word-nonword pairs and 90 filler word-word pairs, such that the overall prime-target relatedness proportion was reduced to 25% and target responses could not be predicted from prime-target formal similarity, derivational suffixes of primes, or total word-nonword proportion (50%).
Statistical analyses revealed no priming for the opaque condition. In contrast, significant priming was found for the transparent and semitransparent conditions (Figure 1), with the amount of priming being equal between them (Figure 2). Results suggest that late morphological processing in MG is semantically constrained, as is the case with other morphologically rich, concatenative IE languages (e.g., Polish, Serbian; but not German [Smolka et al., 2009]). Importantly, the observed priming effects posit whole-word processing for opaque (pseudo-)derivatives on the one hand and morpho-semantic decomposition for transparent and semitransparent derivatives on the other hand, without further gradation between transparent and semitransparent derivatives. Namely, morpho-semantic decomposition seems to be driven by a predictable part of meaning (Corbin, 1987/1991; Lieber, 2004), which brings together transparent and semitransparent derivatives. Therefore, the present findings favor a dichotomous rather than graded account of semantic transparency in late visual morphological processing.

The present study investigates semantic transparency effects in late visual word recognition, with regard to Modern Greek derivation. We conducted an overt priming lexical decision experiment, comparing morphologically related prime–target pairs in three semantic transparency conditions (i.e., opaque, semitransparent, transparent). Statistical analyses revealed significant priming of the same magnitude in the transparent and semitransparent condition, but no priming in the opaque condition. Results suggest that late morphological processing in Modern Greek derivation is semantically constrained, implying whole-word processing for opaque derivatives and pseudoderivatives, but morphosemantic decomposition for transparent and semitransparent derivatives. Moreover, the absence of any further gradation between the transparent and semitransparent condition indicates that morphosemantic decomposition is driven by a predictable part of meaning that brings together transparent and semitransparent derivatives. Therefore, we support a dual route account of late semantic transparency effects.

Este trabalho apresenta os resultados de uma pesquisa experimental sobre a aquisi-
ção da morfologia derivacional do português brasileiro (PB). O presente estudo investiga se
crianças adquirindo PB são capazes de proceder a uma segmentação do fluxo da fala, de modo
a identificar nele os morfemas derivacionais de sua língua. Pretendeu-se evidenciar qual tipo
de estratégia a criança executa para tal tarefa. Valendo-se do Paradigma da Fixação Preferencial
do Olhar, testou-se a habilidade de crianças adquirintes de PB na faixa etária de 4 a 5 anos
em reconhecer a presença do prefixo des- adjungido a verbos de ação em três tipos de condi-
ções experimentais, duas não ambíguas e uma ambígua. Os resultados sugerem que as crian-
ças identificam a raiz do nome presente no estímulo, bem como reconhecem o prefixo adjungido
à raiz do nome, o que indica uma estratégia de decomposição morfológica nas condições em
que o estímulo apresentado não é ambíguo. Já na condição em que o estímulo é ambíguo em
relação à possibilidade de decomposição, os resultados não apontam para a manutenção dessa
estratégia, mas sim para uma estratégia de whole-form processing.

Miwa, K., G. Libben, T. Dijkstra, and R. H. Baayen
This lexical decision study with eye tracking of Japanese two-kanji-character words investigated the order in which a whole two-character word and its morphographic constituents are activated in the course of lexical access, the relative contributions of the left and the right characters in lexical decision, the depth to which semantic radicals are processed, and how nonlinguistic factors affect lexical processes. Mixed-effects regression analyses of response times and subgaze durations (i.e., first-pass fixation time spent on each of the two characters) revealed joint contributions of morphographic units at all levels of the linguistic structure with the magnitude and the direction of the lexical effects modulated by readers' locus of attention in a left-to-right preferred processing path. During the early time frame, character effects were larger in magnitude and more robust than radical and whole-word effects, regardless of the font size and the type of nonwords. Extending previous radical-based and character-based models, we propose a task/decision-sensitive character-driven processing model with a level-skipping assumption: Connections from the feature level bypass the lower radical level and link up directly to the higher character level.

Galls are plant tissue which is controlled by the insect. Galls are outgrowths on the surface of leaf caused by invasion of various organisms like Bacteria, Fungi, Insects, Parasites and Mites. Galls may be found on leaves, stems, twigs, branches, trunks and roots. There are hundreds of unique galls caused by insects and mites. They are formed on a variety of plants and in a broad range of sizes, shapes, colors and textures. Some galls are common and abundant and easily noticed. Others are rare or less conspicuous. This paper reports physicochemical study in leaf galls of Syzygium cumini. The parameters assayed were Total ash, acid insolubility and water solubility values and extractive values (Alcohol, water and petroleum ether).

The present multiple case study investigates the production of compound words in three Greek-speaking individuals with agrammatism, as a symptom either of stroke-induced aphasia or Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA). Two off-line tasks were conducted, a picture naming and a production by definition task, using different types of compounds, in order to examine patients' ability to produce complex morphological structures and the impact of specific compound properties. Results showed that all patients’ performance was significantly more impaired compared to healthy controls. Qualitative analysis revealed different error patterns for each pathological condition, suggesting that agrammatism in stroke-induced and primary progressive aphasia does not necessarily result in the same deficits when it comes to morphological processing. Moreover, heterogeneous results emerged for the two PPA patients which further highlight the progressive nature of PPA as a crucial factor in complex word retrieval.

This paper deals with the design of an online morphological priming task, aiming to investigate the parameter of semantic transparency with regard to denominal derivation in Standard Modern Greek. First, we outline the methodological framework and specify our research scope. Then, we examine semantic transparency, providing a theoretical account, describing three offline semantic relatedness pretests and defining semantic transparency as independent variable from functional point of view. Next, we set out certain criteria for selecting experimental items and refer to the extraneous variables matched among the priming conditions (transparent, semitransparent, opaque). Finally, we present the experimental design and discuss some appropriate techniques for its application, as well as the research questions we expect to address.

Superpixel segmentation showed to be a useful preprocessing step in many computer vision applications. Superpixel's purpose is to reduce the redundancy in the image and increase efficiency from the point of view of the next processing task. This led to a variety of algorithms to compute superpixel segmentations, each with individual strengths and weaknesses. Many methods for the computation of superpixels were already presented. A drawback of most of these methods is their high computational complexity and hence high computational time consumption. K mean based SLIC method shows better performance as compare to other while evaluating on the bases of under segmentation error and boundary recall, etc parameters.

This paper presents an empirical study that
investigates the vocabulary knowledge of 92 Saudi
university learners of English as a Foreign Language
(EFL) near the start and near the end of their
university studies. Two tests were used to measure
the participants’ vocabulary size: the well-established
Eurocentres Vocabulary Size Test (EVST) (Meara &
Jones, 1990) test and a newly created XK_Lex (Al-
Masrai, 2009), designed to make a more accurate
measurement of vocabulary size. Results suggest that
Saudi university students’ vocabulary size is about
2000 to 3000 words on entry to university and
around 5000 words nearer graduation. These figures
thus emphasise that Saudi university learners’ level
is, on average, some way short of the kind of level
associated with complete fluency in EFL. Thus, the
study suggests further English language support for
the graduated students.

Handwriting or character recognition is one of the most challenging topics and the oldest application of pattern recognition. Till now, all the research progress and innovation has been made either regarding enhancing the preprocessing steps or via advancing the language modelling process. In this paper, we are presenting a combined method for Hiragana handwriting recognition through the exploration of morphological processing and features extraction. Our approach is tested in online mode and uses two different classifiers for evaluation, the Support Vector Machine (SVM) and the K-Nearest Neighbour (KNN). The outcome of this investigation gave knowledge about the best combination and structure of the adequate method for performing a recognition accuracy of 90.3 percent on online test data not used in the training.

The object counting and object detection are the necessary tasks in the field such as agriculture industries, manufacturing industry, biological sciences. Various techniques are discovered and still developing for counting purpose. The proposed algorithm is to count of the semen straws that held in a compact bunch by using image processing techniques. These straws are kept in the liquid nitrogen for the straw content preservation purpose. Safety requirements of the semen straws as well as workers working in the liquid nitrogen environment, a non-harming, short-term process for straw counting is required. So, the best possible way for straw counting is to use image processing. For counting straw, operations such as thresholding, segmentation, morphological processing, and color based segmentation, advanced morphological processing, etc. are useful. The objectives are to count the straws in the container that kept in liquid nitrogen without harming any straw. The counting algorithm evaluated using Vision Builder Automated Inspection, which is supported by LabVIEW.

The discriminative lexicon is introduced as a mathematical and computational model of the mental lexicon. This novel theory is inspired by word and paradigm morphology but operationalizes the concept of proportional analogy using the mathematics of linear algebra. It embraces the discriminative perspective on language, rejecting the idea that words’ meanings are compositional in the sense of Frege and Russell and arguing instead that the relation between form and meaning is fundamentally discriminative. The discriminative lexicon also incorporates the insight from machine learning that end-to-end modeling is much more effective than working with a cascade of models targeting individual subtasks. The computational engine at the heart of the discriminative lexicon is linear discriminative learning: simple linear networks are used for mapping form onto meaning and meaning onto form, without requiring the hierarchies of post-Bloomfieldian ‘hidden’ constructs such as phonemes, morphemes,...

This paper examines effects of certain linguistic and extra-linguistic factors on semantic transparency, with regard to denominal suffixation in Standard Modern Greek. We conducted three semantic relatedness rating tasks with overall 566 word pairs and 240 participants. The analyses by items, i.e. correlation of semantic transparency ratings with standard deviations, as well as effects of familiarity, frequency, and morphological family size, imply a dichotomous metalinguistic account of semantic transparency. On the other hand, the analyses by participants revealed significant effect of faculty type, with participants from the Humanities having higher rating and familiarity scores than participants from other faculties.

Ramscar, M., M. Dye, J. Blevins, and R. H. Baayen
The development of morphological processing has been the focal topic in a debate over the nature of language, learning and the mind in cognitive science. Particular attention has been paid to the systematic nature of children’s morphological errors (for example children tend to go through a phase of saying “mouses” as they learn English nominal morphology). Because these errors aren’t explicitly corrected, it has been argued that the transition to adult language cannot be explained by learning, and that the acquisition of even relatively simple aspects of grammar must involve innate, language specific mechanisms. We describe the background to this debate, along with some models of the learning of noun morphology based on formal learning theory that generate clear and surprising predictions. In particular, that exposure to regular plurals (e.g. rats) can decrease children’s tendency to overregularize irregular plurals (e.g. mouses). We review empirical results showing that testing memory for items with regular plural labels does lead to a decrease in irregular plural overregularization in six-year-olds, yet an increase in four-year-olds. These models and results indicate that when the learning problem facing children is properly characterized, overregularization both arises and is resolved as a result of the discriminative nature of human learning systems, and the way learning responds to the distribution of evidence in the linguistic environment. The models and results we review indicate that, far than being evidence for language specific mechanisms, the behavior manifest in overregularization bears all the hallmarks of basic learning mechanisms that we share with a number of other animals. We discuss the implications of this for our broader understanding of language and learning, as well as the nature of human communication.

Two lexical decision tasks, one with overt and one with masked priming, were carried out in order to explore lexical access and mental representation of coordinative compounds in Modern Greek. Results of both experiments showed strong priming effects in both first and second constituent recognition when primed by the whole compound, pointing to lexical access through robust decomposition and, consequently, a structured mental representation where both constituents contribute equally. The study provides some initial insights about coordination at the lexical level and also discusses the role of different relational information between constituents during lexical access of compounds.

The discriminative lexicon is introduced as a mathematical and computational model of the mental lexicon. This novel theory is inspired by word and paradigm morphology, but operationalizes the concept of proportional analogy using the mathematics of linear algebra. It embraces the discrim-inative perspective on language, rejecting the idea that words' meanings are compositional in the sense of Frege and Russell, and arguing instead that the relation between form and meaning is fundamentally discriminative. The discriminative lexicon also incorporates the insight from machine learning that end-to-end modeling is much more effective than working with a cascade of models targeting individual subtasks. The computational engine at the heart of the discriminative lexicon is linear discriminative learning: Simple linear networks are used for mapping form onto meaning, and meaning onto form, without requiring the hierarchies of post-Bloomfieldian 'hidden' constructs such as phonemes, morphemes, and stems. We show that this novel model meets the criteria of accuracy (it properly recognizes words, and produces words correctly), productivity (the model is remarkably successful in understanding and producing novel complex words), and predictivity (it correctly predicts a wide array of experimental phenomena in lexical processing). The discrimin-ative lexicon does not make use of static representations that are stored in memory and that have to be accessed in comprehension and production. It replaces static representations by states of the cognitive system that arise dynamically as a consequence of external or internal stimuli. The dis-criminative lexicon brings together visual and auditory comprehension as well as speech production into an integrated dynamic system of coupled linear networks.

Plag, I., and R. H. Baayen
There is a long-standing debate about the principles constraining the combinatorial properties of suffixes. Hay 2002 and Hay & Plag 2004 proposed a model in which suffixes can be ordered along a hierarchy of processing complexity. We show that this model generalizes to a larger set of suffixes, and we provide independent evidence supporting the claim that a higher rank in the ordering correlates with increased productivity. Behavioral data from lexical decision and word naming show, however, that this model has been one-sided in its exclusive focus on the importance of constituent-driven processing, and that it requires supplementation by a second and equally important focus on the role of memory. Finally, using concepts from graph theory, we show that the space of existing suffix combinations can be conceptualized as a directed graph, which, with surprisingly few exceptions, is acyclic. This acyclicity is hypothesized to be functional for lexical processing.

Morphological processing of inflected and derived words tends to vary by age as studies have reported that preschool children begin to produce inflected words spontaneously in their speech earlier than derived words (Brown, 1973; de Villiers & de Villiers, 1973). Conversely, knowledge of derived forms occurs in late childhood and are continuously learned even beyond adolescence. This study follows Deacon, Campbell, Tamming, and Kirby’s (2010) attempt to establish a direct comparison of relational knowledge of inflected and derived forms through priming method. Specifically, it focuses on ESL children whose native language is Kinaray-a – a language widely spoken in Antique Province in the central part of the Philippines. The experiment involved 90 students from Grades 7, 8, and 9 in a public high school. They were presented four types of priming conditions – root forms, inflected, derived and orthographic control items (e.g., form, formed, forming, and format) then followed by a fragment completion task (e.g., f o _ _ ). The results showed that the participants were able to complete the fragment with the target word (e.g., form for f o _ _ ). Analysis of the mean accuracy and priming effect revealed that identity/root form had the highest score and the greatest priming effect was followed by the inflected and the derived forms. Moreover, no statistically significant difference was found between inflectionally and derivationally suffixed words as they are both equally effective in eliciting the target words. Finally, priming effects were greater for the inflected and derived forms than for the orthographic control, and they were also found to be consistent by and across grades.

Keywords: morphological processing, inflected words, derived words, second language learners

Strict compositionality in morphological theory is problematic for explaining how language-users comprehend phenomena like the partial yet non-decomposable forms in phonaesthemes and in blends like EDUTAINMENT. An alternative account, based on discriminative learning, proposes that language-users associate linguistic cues (e.g., short segment or letter strings) with multiple simultaneous possible lexical and grammatical meanings. We evaluate this account on off-line human identifications of partial word-forms, using English blend words as our test case. We hypothesize that readers' ability to parse out source meanings from written blend forms should be correlated with how strongly a na\"ive discriminative reading  model associates the cues in each form with the correct source meanings. We provide evidence for this claim in two experiments, in which the discriminative learning model reliably predicted participants' success rate in guessing the sources of both attested and novel blends. This finding supports discriminative learning as a realistic model of how readers parse wordforms and map them to meanings. Further, the result points towards a novel, precise account of blend processing.

Recent years have seen a small but growing body of psycholinguistic research focused on typologically diverse languages. This represents an important development for the field, where theorizing is still largely guided by the often implicit assumption of universality. This paper introduces a special issue of Language, Cognition and Neuroscience devoted to the topic of cross-linguistic and field-based approaches to the study of psycholinguistics. The papers in this issue draw on data from a variety of genetically and areally divergent languages, to address questions in the production and comprehension of phonology, morphology, words, and sentences. To contextualize these studies, we provide an overview of the field of cross-linguistic psycholinguistics, from its early beginnings to the present day, highlighting instances where cross-linguistic data have significantly contributed to psycholinguistic theorizing.

In this work, we investigate the processing of bound stems in L1 and L2 Italian in order to verify whether their lack of autonomy is a factor affecting processing mechanisms or whether, on the contrary, they are processed in the same way as free and autonomous stems. In paradigmatic approaches, morphological connections among words are established on the basis of simultaneous semantic and formal similarities; consequently, morphologically complex words should be considered as members of the same family even if they do not share a proper segmentable and autonomous stem. In order to answer our research question, we conducted a masked-priming experiment where derived target words (giornalismo, terrore) were primed by derived words comprising free (giornalista) and bound stems (terribile). Results indicate similar effects yielded by free and bound stems on the recognition of morphologically related words relative to both an unrelated and an orthographic condition with native speakers. With non-native speakers, however, the facilitation observed in the morphological condition was significant relative to both the unrelated and orthographic conditions only in the free set. With bound stems we did observe an effect, which was however significant only relative to the unrelated baseline. We conclude that the lack of a transparent, segmentable and autonomous status does not affect L1 processing mechanisms as predicted by paradigmatic approaches, while for L2 speakers the establishing of truly morphological relationships might be impaired by formal opacity. Our interpretation is in line with models of L2 processing which acknowledge the role of morphology, while admitting a possible interference of formal aspects.

Balling, L., and R. H. Baayen
In this study, we investigate the processing of morphologically complex words in Danish using auditory lexical decision. We document a second critical point in auditory comprehension in addition to the Uniqueness Point (UP), namely the point at which competing morphological continuation forms of the base cease to be compatible with the input, henceforth the Complex Uniqueness Point (CUP). Suffixed words with later CUP elicited longer response latencies. We also observed an interaction between suffix frequency and whole-word frequency. Both suffix and whole-word frequency were facilitatory, except for words for which both frequencies are high. For such words, we observed inhibition, and most clearly so for female compared with male participants. Finally, a comparison of complex with simple words revealed that, other things being equal, complex words have a processing advantage compared to simple words. We discuss the consequences of these findings for models of morphological processing.

The present study investigates the relationship between the morphological processing of regular and irregular words and second language (L2) vocabulary acquisition. In considering that monolingual Arabic speakers derive a large number of new words from roots by leaning heavily on the regularity of rules in Arabic (Bar & Dershowitz, 2012; Habash, 2010), they are expected to experience difficulty when developing the lexicon of a language with less regular rules, such as English. To examine this assumption empirically, data were collected by administering an English receptive vocabulary knowledge test that included 100 regular and irregular inflected and derived words to 450 Arabic English as a foreign language (EFL) learners from schools in Saudi Arabia. The test also included pesudowords (non-words) to act as
‘gatekeepers’ against the possibility of guessing. The t-test results revealed a non-significant difference in learners’ uptake of L2 words, whether regular or irregular. However, the study indicates that word frequency plays a statistically significant role in learning L2 vocabulary that is irregularly inflected or derived. The frequency effect on irregular word morphology found in this study is in line with the approach of a dual-route mechanism. This approach suggests that irregular words are not rule-based, so are stored in the mental lexicon as full entries, whereas regular words are not. This article suggests that introducing rules for deriving new words from base forms to EFL learners in the early stages
of learning would be very useful for L2 vocabulary development.

En este artículo se propone la utilización de mecanismos de morfología derivativa productiva con el fin de agrupar en una misma familia morfológica a todas aquellas palabras que se derivan de una misma raíz gramatical. En particular, se propone la creación de un sistema automático para la generación de dichas familias, el cual utiliza escasos recursos lingüísticos y cuya ejecución conlleva un bajo coste computacional. Dicho sistema es aplicado en tareas de normalización de términos simples para así mejorar la ...

Abstract: This paper describes methodology for automatic morphological generation and analysis using inflectional lexical database. The database contains all existing personal names today in Croatia. It is possible to generate all word-forms for given names in accordance with the Croatian language rules. Rules for combination of personal names with family names are given. As personal name recognition module the system is included in robust morphological processor for the Croatian Language.

The present study investigates the relationship between the morphological processing of regular and irregular words and second language (L2) vocabulary acquisition. In considering that monolingual Arabic speakers derive a large number of new words from roots by leaning heavily on the regularity of rules in Arabic (Bar & Dershowitz, 2012; Habash, 2010), they are expected to experience difficulty when developing the lexicon of a language with less regular rules, such as English. To examine this assumption empirically, data were collected by administering an English receptive vocabulary knowledge test that included 100 regular and irregular inflected and derived words to 450 Arabic English as a foreign language (EFL) learners from schools in Saudi Arabia. The test also included pesudowords (non-words) to act as 'gatekeepers' against the possibility of guessing. The t-test results revealed a non-significant difference in learners' uptake of L2 words, whether regular or irreg...

A growing body of psycholinguistic research suggests that visual and auditory word recognition involve morphological decomposition: Individual morphemes are extracted and lexically accessed when participants are presented with multi-morphemic stimuli. This view is supported by the Morpheme Interference Effect (MIE), where responses to pseudowords that contain real morphemes are slower and less accurate than responses to pseudowords that contain invented morphemes. The MIE was previously demonstrated primarily for visually presented stimuli. Here, we examine whether individuals’ sensitivity to morphological structure generalizes across modalities. Participants performed a lexical decision task on visually and auditorily presented Hebrew stimuli, including pseudowords derived from real or invented roots. The results show robust MIEs in both modalities. We further show that visual MIE is consistently stronger than auditory MIE, both at the group level and at the individual level. Final...

University of Oslo, 1991. This M. Phil. thesis is about memorization techniques of the plurals of nouns employed by children and adults in the Hausa language (Afro-Asiatic phylum, West Africa). Hausa has 40 or so different ways of making plurals, including techniques of tonal change, suffixing, partial and full reduplication. The thesis argues that rather than generating the plural forms from the singular forms by a series of operations predictable from the shape of singulars (= source orientation), a number templates associated with plural meaning are memorized (=product orientation), and the derivational processes from the singular form is of lesser importance. Psycholinguistic experimental data checking on categorisation criteria and the inflection of nonsense words support this. The thesis employs Joan Bybees morpological model (1985) and is quoted in one of her works. It is argued that introspective data is insufficient for falsification, drawing on ideas originating from Jean Berko, the cognitive phsychologist.