The direction of word stress processing in German: evidence from a working memory paradigm.

Frank Domahs,Ulrike Domahs,Walter Huber,Marion Grande

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00574

Abstract

There are contradicting assumptions and findings on the direction of word stress processing in German. To resolve this question, we asked participants to read tri-syllabic non-words and stress ambiguous words aloud. Additionally, they also performed a working memory (WM) task (2-back task). In non-word reading, participants’ individual WM capacity was positively correlated with assignment of main stress to the antepenultimate syllable, which is most distant to the word’s right edge, while a (complementary) negative correlation was observed with assignment of stress to the ultimate syllable. There was no significant correlation between WM capacity and stress assignment to the penultimate syllable, which has been claimed to be the default stress pattern in German. In reading stress ambiguous words, a similar but non-significant pattern was observed as in non-word reading. In sum, our results provide first psycholinguistic evidence supporting leftward stress processing in German. Our results do not lend support to the assumption of penultimate default stress in German. A specification of the lemma model is proposed which seems able to reconcile our findings and apparently contradicting assumptions and evidence.

Highlights

How do we know which syllable of a polysyllabic word should receive main stress? In figuring out – should we start from the beginning or from the end of the word? The answer seems easy in languages with fixed stress position: We should start from the left edge in languages with fixed stress on the first (e.g., Cahuilla, Hungarian, and Icelandic), second (e.g., Dakota, Mapudungun, and Tolai), or third (e.g., Winnebago) syllable, while we should start from the right edge in languages with fixed stress on the ultimate (U, e.g., Balinese, Persian, and Weri), penultimate (PU, e.g., Djingili, Polish, and Quechua), or antepenultimate (APU, e.g., Greek, Macedonian, and Paumari) syllable
Some accounts of stress assignment in German assume that tri-syllabic words with a closed final syllable are parsed into two metrical feet (a final non-branching foot and a preceding binary one ([σσ)F(σ)F]ω), while words with an open final syllable are only parsed into one foot ([σ(σσ)F]ω), leaving an unparsed initial syllable, where stress assignment is disfavored (Alber, 1997; Domahs et al, 2008; Knaus and Domahs, 2009)
In sum, we observed a positive correlation of working memory (WM) capacity with the proportion of APU stress assigned and a negative correlation with the proportion of U stress assigned for non-words and a similar but non-significant pattern for stress ambiguous words

Summary

Introduction

How do we know which syllable of a polysyllabic word should receive main stress? In figuring out – should we start from the beginning (i.e., left edge) or from the end (i.e., right edge) of the word? The answer seems easy in languages with fixed stress position: We should start from the left edge in languages with fixed stress on the first (e.g., Cahuilla, Hungarian, and Icelandic), second (e.g., Dakota, Mapudungun, and Tolai), or third (e.g., Winnebago) syllable, while we should start from the right edge in languages with fixed stress on the ultimate (U, e.g., Balinese, Persian, and Weri), penultimate (PU, e.g., Djingili, Polish, and Quechua), or antepenultimate (APU, e.g., Greek, Macedonian, and Paumari) syllable (for an overview see Goedemans and van der Hulst, 2014). The matter is less obvious in languages with variable stress (e.g., English, German, and Russian) As in those languages the position of main stress is largely unpredictable, it has been suggested that this information has to be stored in the mental lexicon for all words. It is not clear, whether, for instance, the lexical entry of the German word Veránda codes main stress position as second or prefinal – in other words, whether retrieval of stress position proceeds in a rightward or leftward manner (or with no specific directionality at all). The present study aims to explore the interaction of interindividual variance in stress assignment and specific computational demands for different stress positions to investigate the direction of stress processing in German. In the remainder of this section, we will first summarize arguments on the direction of stress computation in German and outline the rationale of the study

Methods

Results

Conclusion