Structure Of English Words Research Articles

Aphesis and Aphaeresis in Late Modern English Dialects (based on EDD Online)

ABSTRACT Various technical terms concerning the internal structure of English words refer to the fact that parts of the original version of a word have been cut off or lost: aphesis, clipping, aphaeresis, elision, and many others. This paper focuses on the role of aphesis and aphaeresis in Late Modern English (LModE) dialects. The paper’s main aim is a close-up investigation of the specific conditioning factors. Given that aphesis and aphaeresis have been particularly relevant in English dialects and that they are therefore more than an aspect of style and colloquial speech, the paper will discuss the linguistic, in particular, the phonological/phonotactic and morphological rules involved, thus filling an obvious gap in the state of the art. In contrast to most previous publications, this study is corpus-based, with all data coming from EDD Online 3.0, the new digitised version of Joseph Wright’s English Dialect Dictionary.

Objectification of the word-formation structure of English words with the word-forming formant -ment=flex

Objectification of the word-formation structure of English words with the word-forming formant -ment=flex

The orthographic similarity structure of English words: Insights from network science

Network science has been applied to study the structure of the mental lexicon, the part of long-term memory where all the words a person knows are stored. Here the tools of network science are used to study the organization of orthographic word-forms in the mental lexicon and how that might influence visual word recognition. An orthographic similarity network of the English language was constructed such that each node represented an English word, and undirected, unweighted edges were placed between words that differed by an edit distance of 1, a commonly used operationalization of orthographic similarity in psycholinguistics. The largest connected component of the orthographic language network had a small-world structure and a long-tailed degree distribution. Additional analyses were conducted using behavioral data obtained from a psycholinguistic database to determine if network science measures obtained from the orthographic language network could be used to predict how quickly and accurately people process written words. The present findings show that the structure of the mental lexicon influences lexical access in visual word recognition.

The Acquisition of English Word Stress by Mandarin EFL Learners

Compared with the study of acquisition of syntax and morphology, there is a relative lack of research on the acquisition of phonology, the L2 acquisition of word stress in particular. This paper investigates the production of word stress by 70 Chinese college students in their reading aloud. Altogether 350 minutes’ recordings were collected and coded. The result shows that improper assignment of word stress most likely occurs in two-syllable words and three-syllable words and on the first syllable. The factors which account for these problems are learners’ insensitivity to syllabic structure of English words and lack of knowledge of rules on English word stress.

What can megastudies tell us about the orthographic structure of English words?

Although the majority of research in visual word recognition has targeted single-syllable words, most words are polysyllabic. These words engender special challenges, one of which concerns their analysis into smaller units. According to a recent hypothesis, the organization of letters into groups of successive consonants (C) and vowels (V) constrains the orthographic structure of printed words. So far, evidence has been reported only in French with factorial studies of relatively small sets of items. In the present study, we performed regression analyses on corpora of megastudies (English and British Lexicon Project databases) to examine the influence of the CV pattern in English. We compared hiatus words, which present a mismatch between the number of syllables and the number of groups of adjacent vowel letters (e.g., client), to other words, controlling for standard lexical variables. In speeded pronunciation, hiatus words were processed more slowly than control words, and the effect was stronger in low-frequency words. In the lexical decision task, the interference effect of hiatus in low-frequency words was balanced by a facilitatory effect in high-frequency words. Taken together, the results support the hypothesis that the configuration of consonant and vowel letters influences the processing of polysyllabic words in English.

Lewis Carroll's Doublets net of English words: network heterogeneity in a complex system.

Lewis Carroll's English word game Doublets is represented as a system of networks with each node being an English word and each connectivity edge confirming that its two ending words are equal in letter length, but different by exactly one letter. We show that this system, which we call the Doublets net, constitutes a complex body of linguistic knowledge concerning English word structure that has computable multiscale features. Distributed morphological, phonological and orthographic constraints and the language's local redundancy are seen at the node level. Phonological communities are seen at the network level. And a balancing act between the language's global efficiency and redundancy is seen at the system level. We develop a new measure of intrinsic node-to-node distance and a computational algorithm, called community geometry, which reveal the implicit multiscale structure within binary networks. Because the Doublets net is a modular complex cognitive system, the community geometry and computable multi-scale structural information may provide a foundation for understanding computational learning in many systems whose network structure has yet to be fully analyzed.

Morphophonemic Analysis of Inflectional Morphemes in English and Ibibio Nouns: Implications for Linguistic Studies

Linguists generally acknowledge that there exists an inevitable inter-relationship between different levels oflinguistic analysis---phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. Various linguistic labels are usedto describe such a link. In particular, there exists a bridge between the phonology and morphology of particularlanguages. The term “morphophonemics” is generally used to describe linguistic statements that can be made ofthe phonemic structure of morphemes and their effect on the grammatical content of languages. This paperbasically attempts a morphophonemic analysis of inflectional morphemes of nouns in two structurally andhistorically distinct languages (English and Ibibio) in order to discover points of differences and similaritiesusing the Contrastive Analysis (CA) model of investigation as its theoretical framework. The results indicate thatthe two languages are structurally different. For instance, Ibibio is agglutinative, tonal and analytic in naturewhile English is basically analytic and intonational. The paper, therefore, analyzes the problem that the Ibibiospeaker of English is likely to encounter in the study of the English word structure. Again, based on its findings,the paper corroborates Greenberg’s (1964) and Essien’s (2003) classifications of African and Southern Nigerianlanguages respectively.

Parents’ reading-related knowledge and children’s reading acquisition

Teacher reading-related knowledge (phonological awareness and phonics knowledge) predicts student reading, however little is known about the reading-related knowledge of parents. Participants comprised 70 dyads (children from kindergarten and grade 1 and their parents). Parents were administered a questionnaire tapping into reading-related knowledge, print exposure, storybook reading, and general cultural knowledge. Children were tested on measures of letter-word knowledge, sound awareness, receptive vocabulary, oral expression, and mathematical skill. Parent reading-related knowledge showed significant positive links with child letter-word knowledge and sound awareness, but showed no correlations with child measures of mathematical skill or vocabulary. Furthermore, parent reading-related knowledge was not associated with parents' own print exposure or cultural knowledge, indicating that knowledge about English word structure may be separate from other cognitive skills. Implications are discussed in terms of improving parent reading-related knowledge to promote child literacy.

Why Elementary Teachers Might Be Inadequately Prepared to Teach Reading

Several national reports have suggested the usefulness of systematic, explicit, synthetic phonics instruction based on English word structure along with wide reading of quality literature for supporting development in early reading instruction. Other studies have indicated, however, that many in-service teachers are not knowledgeable in the basic concepts of the English language. They may be well versed in children’s literature but not know how to address the basic building blocks of language and reading. The authors hypothesized that one of the reasons for this situation is that many instructors responsible for training future elementary teachers are not familiar with the concepts of the linguistic features of English language. This hypothesis was tested by administering a survey of language concepts to 78 instructors. The results showed that even though teacher educators were familiar with syllabic knowledge, they performed poorly on concepts relating to morphemes and phonemes. In a second study, 40 instructors were interviewed about best practices in teaching components and subskills of reading. Eighty percent of instructors defined phonological awareness as letter-sound correspondence. They also did not mention synthetic phonics as a desirable method to use for beginning reading instruction, particularly for students at risk for reading difficulties. In conclusion, providing professional development experiences related to language concepts to instructors could provide them the necessary knowledge of language concepts related to early literacy instruction, which they could then integrate into their preservice reading courses.

Do words in the native language influence second‐language speech perception? Evidence from Japanese listeners’ perception of English words that exist as Japanese loanwords.

It is well known that native‐language (L1) sound structure influences adult learners’ perception of second‐language (L2) speech. However, it is not as clear whether L2 speech perception can also be influenced by L1 mental lexicon. Specifically, L2 words may be inaccurately perceived if familiar loanword counterparts exist in L1 and if these loanwords have different sound patterns from the original words. To examine this, the present study took advantage of Japanese loanwords from English (e.g., Japanese /sutoresu/ from English “stress”), which typically undergo syllable structure changes, and investigated whether Japanese listeners can accurately perceive the syllable structure of English words even when loanwords exist in Japanese. Thirty native Japanese listeners were asked to count syllables in 189 English words spoken by a native English talker, and rate their subjective familiarity with the English words and their loanword counterparts transcribed in Japanese katakana orthography. Results indicated that syllable‐counting accuracy (65% on average) was not influenced by familiarity with the English words nor with the Japanese loanwords. Results suggest that even though loanwords resemble the original words in their sound and meaning, knowledge of such words in L1 does not necessarily influence perceptual processing of L2 words. [Work supported by MEXT and JSPS.]

The Research-Practice Divide in Beginning Reading

An extensive research base on beginning reading acquisition and reading difficulties, developed over the past few decades, has important implications for the teaching of reading. Unfortunately, much of this research does not appear to be reaching teachers, whose knowledge is essential for scientific findings about reading to benefit children. This article focuses on two key areas of teachers' research-based disciplinary knowledge for teaching reading: knowledge about children's early reading development and knowledge about English word structure. Evidence demonstrating a gap between teacher knowledge in these areas and current scientific findings is reviewed. Next, possible reasons for the gap are explored. The article concludes with suggestions for educators who are interested in acquiring additional research-based knowledge about reading.

Teacher-Education Students' Reading Abilities and their Knowledge about Word Structure

This study focused on teacher-education students taking a special-education language-arts course in which information about English word structure was taught. The relationship between students' component reading-related abilities and their performance on three measures of word-structure knowledge, before and after course instruction about word structure, was examined. Students' word reading accuracy and spelling ability, but not their general language abilities or reading speed, influenced their acquisition of word-structure knowledge. Specific patterns of results varied by word-structure task and by time (pre-vs. posttest); however, even students with strong component reading abilities performed at fairly low levels on the word-structure knowledge tasks at pretest, and course instruction influenced students' knowledge acquisition as much as or more than their component abilities did. Findings support the need to provide word-structure information in teacher preparation and suggest that it may sometimes be useful to assess different types of knowledge separately.

Type-based bigram frequencies for five-letter words

Researchers often require subjects to make judgments that call upon their knowledge of the orthographic structure of English words. Such knowledge is relevant in experiments on, for example, reading, lexical decision, and anagram solution. One common measure of orthographic structure is the sum of the frequencies of consecutive bigrams in the word. Traditionally, researchers have relied on token-based norms of bigram frequencies. These norms confound bigram frequency with word frequency because each instance (i.e., token) of a particular word in a corpus of running text increments the frequencies of the bigrams that it contains. In this article, the authors report a set of type-based bigram frequencies in which each word (i.e., type) contributes only once, thereby unconfounding bigram frequency from word frequency. The authors show that type-based bigram frequency is a better predictor of the difficulty of anagram solution than is token-based frequency. These norms can be downloaded from www.psychonomic.org/archive/.

Teachers’ acquisition of knowledge about English word structure

Previous research suggests that teachers’ knowledge about English word structure (e.g., the phonological structure of words and common orthographic patterns in English) may be limited, although this knowledge is important for effective teaching of word decoding. This study examined teacher education students’ knowledge about word structure, and improvements in their knowledge as a result of instruction, using three tasks: graphophonemic segmentation, classification of pseudowords by syllable type, and classification of real words as phonetically regular or irregular. Participants came from a special education certification program and included both preservice and inservice teachers. Results indicated that prior preparation to teach reading influenced participants’ initial performance on two of the three word-structure tasks (all but graphophonemic segmentation); however, prior experience in teaching reading did not influence word-structure knowledge. A subset of participants who received specific instruction about word structure improved their knowledge relative to a comparison group of teacher education students who did not receive word-structure instruction. Prior preparation did not influence participants’ responsiveness to instruction. Conclusions support the viewpoint that teacher education must include information about English word structure for educators who will teach reading and suggest that sufficiently intensive instruction may be important in developing word-structure knowledge.

Editor’s Afterwords: On Editing the Annual Annals of Dyslexia

It seems odd to have the editor's comments coming at the very end of the series of papers. This is by necessity and not by choice. Readers of Volume 52 for 2002 of this Journal will note that I wrote a detailed commentary, as is my practice, to provide the context and to look ahead in what may come in the field. This is what it should be for an editor. Alas, this attempt at analysis and synthesis of the papers is just not possible this year because of the severe page limitation. For this volume every available page is utilized so as to accommodate more accepted papers. I am also obliged to abandon my already written detailed commentary in favor of this short note. With this apologia, I want to emphasize the joys of being the editor of this great Journal. I am privileged to work with a very supportive IDA Board, its officers and staff, creative authors and dedicated reviewers, both on and off the Editorial Board and from different disciplines and many countries. In reading the manuscripts and the reviews many times throughout the year I learn much. Sometimes the reviews are as illuminating as the papers being reviewed, but all professionally rewarding. As scientists-practitioners, we are all dedicated to "the best that science has to offer" (Lyon, S. Shaywitz & B. Shaywitz, this volume). Gopnik, Meltzoff and Kuhi also make this clear in their meticulously researched and beautifully written book on child development The Scientist in the Crib (1999). They state that as parents and citizens we need to understand "what science tells us (and what it doesn't)" and that to get "public policies about children right depends on getting the science right." (p. ix). Their conviction borne out from their research that "... children can do so much because they have the help of people who care about them" (p. x) neatly sums up the mission of IDA. The papers in Part I focus on advances in the science of dyslexia and evidence-based instruction. The paper by Lyon, S. Shaywitz and B. Shaywitz further clarifies some basic concepts and terms in the 1995 operational definition (originally developed by the IDA Research Committee under the guidance of G. Emerson Dickman) in the light of current advances in neurobiological and intervention studies. The paper clarifies the nature and locus of single word decoding, discusses the consequences of phonological difficulties, eschews the IQ-discrepancy concept for instruction and brings to the fore the importance of effective classroom instruction. The next two papers corroborate on the comorbidity of dyslexia with other disorders with an update on genetics aspects (Pennington); and teachers' understanding of speech sounds, words, sentences and principles of instruction for better student learning (Moats & Foorman). The papers in Part II educe further evidence on effective instruction from teachers' knowledge of English word structure and the need for educators to acquire a sound knowledge base of the English language (Spear-Swerling & Brucker); from experienced remedial teachers' evaluation of the potential effectiveness of spelling exercises for poor Dutch spellers (Bos & Reitsma); and from suggestions for learning word structure in relation to speech by unitizing "word

Phonology in the basilect the fate of final consonants in Liberian Interior English

Pidginized Liberian Interior English (LIE) has English as its lexifier language and Mande languages as its substrate. Broadly speaking, this means that LIE takes its lexicon from English and its phonology from Mande. However, the structure of English words clashes with Mande syllable structure conditions, particularly with regard to word-final consonants. To resolve this conflict, LIE has in some cases restructured the English words and in others created phonological rules to make underlying English forms more Mande-like on the surface. These rules include paragoge (for verbs only), resyllabification, and deletion. In the present study, a variable-rule analysis of LIE performance data identifies the crucial linguistic and social factors that bear upon rule choice, thereby making possible a linguistic assessment of regularities in the rules' distribution.

Morphophonology and lexical organization in deaf readers.

Prelingually, profoundly deaf individuals, due to their hearing impairment, would not be expected to have the same access to phonological information as hearing individuals. They might therefore have difficulties in using phonological structure to relate different morphological forms of words. Deaf and hearing readers' sensitivity to the morphological structure of English words was tested in the present study by using a lexical decision (word/nonword classification) task. Target words were primed 10 trials earlier by themselves (e.g., think primed by think), by morphologically related words (e.g., think primed by thought), or by orthographically related words (e.g., think primed by thin). Response times of both hearing and deaf college students to target words were facilitated when primed by themselves and also when primed by morphological relatives. Response times of subjects in neither group were facilitated to targets primed by orthographically related but morphologically unrelated words. These results indicate that deaf readers, like hearing readers, are sensitive to underlying morphophonological relationships among English words.

Use of orthographic structure by deaf adults: Recognition of fingerspelled words

ABSTRACTDeaf adults' access to English word structure was tested in a task requiring letter report for fingerspelled words, orthographically regular nonsense words (pseudowords), and orthographically irregular nonsense words (nonwords). Deaf subjects, like hearing subjects, were sensitive to orthographic structure as indicated by accuracy of letter report: Letters of words were reported most accurately, while letters of pseudowords were reported more accurately than letters of nonwords. Analysis of errors on letter reports revealed that deaf subjects tended to produce orthographically regular responses. These results provide clear evidence that deaf adults are able to make use of orthographic structure.

The rules of language

We all share some basic information about our native language but we are not conscious of ever having learned or worked out the principles involved. For example, we “know” upon hearing them that certain sound sequences could not be words in our language although we have never been taught the principles that govern English word structure. In addition, we possess information about language which could not plausibly be attributed to learning. This unlearned knowledge as well as the knowledge acquired without overt teaching is attributed to innate mechanisms-the consequence of the genetic endowment that differentiates between humans and other species.

Development of a Dictionary for Speech Synthesis

In order to synthesize any given English text, it is necessary to convert the text to a phonemic representation. In the procedure discribed, function words, prefixes, suffixes, “functional roots” (as “pel” in “impel, propel, repel”), and exceptions form a base dictionary. A large corpus of words is then processed, shortest words first, by attempting to decompose each word into prefixes, roots, and suffixes which are in the base lexicon. If the decomposition fails, or is judged to be incorrect, then the word may be added to the lexicon. There is a tendency, however, for the short high-frequency words of English to be more irregular from the letter-to-sound point of view than words of lower frequency. Hence content words are examined for possible conversion directly by a letter (s)-to-sound algorithm. In this way, the conversion of text to phonemes uses a dictionary that takes advantage of the morphemic structure of English words, and yet does not include those words that can be converted directly without the need for lexical entries.