Morphological Constituents Research Articles

Moda w zakresie morfologii współczesnych emporionimów

The paper deals with news linguistic tendencies in the creation of modern names of retail and service. It is described not only transonymisation, onymisation, but also morphological constituents of modern names of retail and service. Units created by suffixes and references to another names are considered as a fashionable. The first are neologisms and one creates them by means of morphemes -nia (-ownia) oraz -arnia, -ernia, -eria, -teka. The latter are created for free form using of proper or common name that they allow for finding their initial structure (Szmatrix < Matrix).

Imię i nazwisko Jubilatki w przestrzeni historyczno-kulturowej i geograficznej

The paper deals with news linguistic tendencies in the creation of modern names of retail and service. It is described not only transonymisation, onymisation, but also morphological constituents of modern names of retail and service. Units created by suffixes and references to another names are considered as a fashionable. The first are neologisms and one creates them by means of morphemes -nia ( -ownia ) oraz -arnia , -ernia , -eria, -teka . The latter are created for free form using of proper or common name that they allow for finding their initial structure ( Szmatrix < Matrix ).

Electrophysiological evidence for the morpheme-based combinatoric processing of English compounds

The extent to which the processing of compounds (e.g., “catfish”) makes recourse to morphological-level representations remains a matter of debate. Moreover, positing a morpheme-level route to complex word recognition entails not only access to morphological constituents, but also combinatoric processes operating on the constituent representations; however, the neurophysiological mechanisms subserving decomposition, and in particular morpheme combination, have yet to be fully elucidated. The current study presents electrophysiological evidence for the morpheme-based processing of both lexicalized (e.g., “teacup”) and novel (e.g., “tombnote”) visually presented English compounds; these brain responses appear prior to and are dissociable from the eventual overt lexical decision response. The electrophysiological results reveal increased negativities for conditions with compound structure, including effects shared by lexicalized and novel compounds, as well as effects unique to each compound type, which may be related to aspects of morpheme combination. These findings support models positing across-the-board morphological decomposition, counter to models proposing that putatively complex words are primarily or solely processed as undecomposed representations, and motivate further electrophysiological research toward a more precise characterization of the nature and neurophysiological instantiation of complex word recognition.

THE MORPHOPHONOLOGY OF THE AKAN REDUPLICATED VERB-FORM

This paper discusses the interaction between constituent formation and alteration of sounds (i.e., morphophonology) in Akan reduplicated verb-forms. Specifically, we strive to look into two issues; the morphology of reduplicated verb stems and how the morphological manifestation(s) affect certain target sounds. With its morphology, we observe that reduplication of the Akan verb-stem is generally total and, through the Morphological Doubling Theory (Inkelas 2005; Inkelas and Zoll 2005), reduplication of Akan verb-stems is viewed as the double (or multiple) occurrence of a morphological constituent meeting a particular morpho-semantic description. That is to say, while there could be differences in structure between the reduplicant and the base, they are subject to a common phonology that determines a resulting shape of an output. With morphophonology, we observe that three issues are relevant in the discussion of the phonology of the reduplicated verbs in Akan. These are the application of vowel harmony, vowel shift in terms of height, and the realization of tonal semblance. Through thorough discussions, the paper finally explains that reduplication of verb-stems in Akan is morphophonologically driven.

Word construction: tracing an optimal path through the lexicon

Optimal Construction Morphology (OCM) is a new construction-based theory of morphology that selects the optimal combination of lexical constructions to best achieve a target meaning. OCM combines elements of realizational and item-based morphological theories. It is realizational, in that words are constructed in response to a given meaning target. It is incremental in that words are built from lexical structures, one layer at a time. It is optimizing in that, in response to a meaning target, the morphological grammar dips into the lexicon, building and assessing morphological constituents incrementally until the word being built optimally matches the target meaning. In this paper OCM is shown to illuminate a vexing optimization puzzle confronted by all theories of morphology: why is redundancy in morphology rejected as ungrammatical in some situations (“blocking”), but absolutely required in others (“multiple/extended exponence”)? The OCM analysis incorporates two notions of morphological strength that have been proposed in the literature: stem type, on a scale from root (weakest) to word (strongest), and exponence strength, related to productivity and parsability.

Past tense route priming

The present research examined whether lexical (whole word) or more rule-based (morphological constituent) processes can be locally biased by experimental list context in past tense verb inflection. In Experiment 1, younger and older adults completed a past tense inflection task in which list context was manipulated across blocks containing regular past tense verbs (e.g. REACH-REACHED) or irregular past tense verbs (TEACH-TAUGHT). Critical targets, consisting of half regular and half irregular verbs, were embedded within blocks and participants’ inflection response latency and accuracy were assessed. The results yielded a cross-over interaction in response latencies for both young and older adults. In the regular context there was a robust regularity effect: regular target verbs were conjugated faster than irregular target verbs. In contrast, in the irregular context, irregular target verbs were conjugated faster than regular target verbs. Experiment 2 used the same targets but in the context of either standard nonwords or nonwords ending in “-ED” to test the possibility of a phonological basis for the effect. The effect of context was eliminated. The results support the notion that distinct processes in past tense verb production can be locally biased by list context and, as shown in Experiment 2, this route priming effect was not due to phonological priming.

How complex are complex words? Evidence from linearization

There is considerable disagreement between theories of morphology concerning the complexity attached to words consisting of more than one morpheme. While, e.g., Distributed Morphology views complex words as a hierarchical structure of individual pieces associated with morpho-syntactic features, inferential frameworks such as A-Morphous Morphology and Paradigm Function Morphology treat complex words as morphologically simplex, consisting merely of a phonological string without any morphological constituent structure. Based on evidence from the Bolivian language Baure this paper argues that the restrictiveness of the latter view prevents an elegant analysis of certain syncretism patterns. The pervasive property of the Baure paradigm is that all agreement markers may appear in word-initial and work-final positions. This pattern can only be directly expressed in the analysis if complex words actually have more than just phonological structure. The argument thus challenges rule-based frameworks of morphology.

Spelling Performance and Semantic Understanding of Compound Words by Greek Students With Learning Disabilities

The study aimed to investigate the spelling performance and the semantic understanding of compound words by 103 Greek primary school children (first through sixth grade). The experimental group comprised of 25 children with spelling difficulties and compared with a control group of 78 children of typical development. Children were asked to spell and define 20 concrete and abstract compounds. They were also asked to spell 20 different compounds after providing their definitions in terms of their morphological constituents. Main results indicated that concrete compounds were spelled and defined better than abstract ones, but the experimental group performed significantly lower than the control group on both word types. Children with spelling disabilities were able to use less etymological information in defining compound words than their typical classmates, suggesting that they understand less the internal structure of morphologically complex words. These results are compatible with the experimental literature and are discussed in terms of the morphophonemic nature of Greek language as a transparent orthography with a rich morphology.

The dental cavities of equine cheek teeth: three-dimensional reconstructions based on high resolution micro-computed tomography

BackgroundRecent studies reported on the very complex morphology of the pulp system in equine cheek teeth. The continuous production of secondary dentine leads to distinct age-related changes of the endodontic cavity. Detailed anatomical knowledge of the dental cavities in all ages is required to explain the aetiopathology of typical equine endodontic diseases. Furthermore, data on mandibular and maxillary pulp systems is in high demand to provide a basis for the development of endodontic therapies. However, until now examination of the pulp cavity has been based on either sectioned teeth or clinical computed tomography. More precise results were expected by using micro-computed tomography with a resolution of about 0.1 mm and three-dimensional reconstructions based on previous greyscale analyses and histological verification. The aim of the present study was to describe the physiological configurations of the pulp system within a wide spectrum of tooth ages.ResultsMaxillary teeth: All morphological constituents of the endodontic cavity were present in teeth between 4 and 16 years: Triadan 06s displayed six pulp horns and five root canals, Triadan 07-10s five pulp horns and four root canals and Triadan 11s seven pulp horns and four to six root canals. A common pulp chamber was most frequent in teeth ≤5 years, but was found even in a tooth of 9 years. A large variety of pulp configurations was observed within 2.5 and 16 years post eruption, but most commonly a separation into mesial and distal pulp compartments was seen. Maxillary cheek teeth showed up to four separate pulp compartments but the frequency of two, three and four pulp compartments was not related to tooth age (P > 0.05). In Triadan 06s, pulp horn 6 was always connected to pulp horns 1 and 3 and root canal I. In Triadan 11s, pulp horns 7 and 8 were present in variable constitutions. Mandibular teeth: A common pulp chamber was present in teeth up to 15 years, but most commonly seen in teeth ≤5 years. A segmented pulp system was found in 72% of the investigated teeth. Segmentation into separate mesial and distal pulp compartments was most commonly present. Pulp horn 4 coalesced either with the mesial pulp horns 1 and 3 or with the distal pulp horns 2 and 5.ConclusionsDetails of the pulpar anatomy of equine cheek teeth are provided, supporting the continuous advancement in endodontic therapy. Numerous individual configurations of the pulp system were obtained in maxillary cheek teeth, but much less variability was seen in mandibular cheek teeth.

Morpheme frequency effects in Dutch complex word reading: A developmental perspective

ABSTRACTThis study examined to what extent advanced and beginning readers, including dyslexic readers of Dutch, make use of morphological access units in the reading of polymorphemic words. Therefore, experiments were carried out in which the role of singular root form frequency in reading plural word forms was investigated in a lexical decision task with both adults and children. Twenty-three adult readers, 37 8-year-old children from Grade 3, 43 11-year-old children from Grade 6, and 33 11-year-old dyslexic readers were presented with a lexical decision task in which we contrasted plural word forms with a high versus low frequency of the singular root form. For the adults, it was found that the accuracy and speed of lexical decision is determined by the surface frequency of the plural word form. The frequency of the constituent root form played a role as well, but in the low-frequency plural words only. Furthermore, a strong developmental effect regarding the accuracy and speed of reading plural word forms was found. An effect of plural word form frequency on word identification was evidenced in all groups. The singular root form frequency also had an impact of the reading of the plural word forms. In the normal reading and dyslexic children, plurals with a high-frequency singular root form were read more accurately and faster than plurals with a low singular root frequency. It can be concluded that constituent morphemes have an impact on the reading of polymorphemic words. The results can be explained in the light of a word experience model leaving room for morphological constituency to play a role in the lexical access of complex words as a function of reading skill and experience and word and morpheme frequency.

A Stochastic Arabic Diacritizer Based on a Hybrid of Factorized and Unfactorized Textual Features

This paper introduces a large-scale dual-mode stochastic system to automatically diacritize raw Arabic text. The first of these modes determines the most likely diacritics by choosing the sequence of full-form Arabic word diacritizations with maximum marginal probability via A^ lattice search and long-horizon n-grams probability estimation. When full-form words are OOV, the system switches to the second mode which factorizes each Arabic word into all its possible morphological constituents, then uses also the same techniques used by the first mode to get the most likely sequence of morphemes, hence the most likely diacritization. While the second mode achieves a far better coverage of the highly derivative and inflective Arabic language, the first mode is faster to learn, i.e., yields better disambiguation results for the same size of training corpora, especially for inferring syntactical (case-ending) diacritics. Our presented hybrid system that benefits from the advantages of both modes has experimentally been found superior to the best performing reported systems of Habash and Rambow, and of Zitouni, using the same training and test corpus for the sake of fair comparison. The word error rates of (morphological diacritization, overall diacritization including the case endings) for the three systems are, respectively, as follows (3.1%, 12.5%), (5.5%, 14.9%), and (7.9%, 18%). The hybrid architecture of language factorizing and unfactorizing components may be inspiring to other NLP/HLT problems in analogous situations.

Morphologically conditioned stress assignment in Choguita Rarámuri

This article investigates the morphologically conditioned stress system of a previously undocumented Uto-Aztecan language, Choguita Raramuri (Tarahumara). Stress distribution in Choguita Raramuri results from a complex interaction between lexically prespecified stress, two systematic subpatterns (second and third syllable stress), a stress rule specific to noun incorporation constructions, and an initial three-syllable window, a highly unusual typological pattern. This article presents a cophonology analysis that captures the full range of stress alternations in this language through the association of morphological constructions with fully general phonological subgrammars, and through the association of morphologically conditioned phonological effects to the hierarchical structure of morphologically complex words. The cophonology analysis is contrasted with a Root Controlled Accent (RCA) analysis, an indexed constraint analysis argued for in Alderete (2001a, 2001b) to account for the stress patterns of Cupeno, a Uto-Aztecan language with stress alternations similar to those attested in Choguita Raramuri. In an RCA analysis, stress alternations are derived through a single constraint ranking and faithfulness constraints indexed to specific morphological contexts. This article argues that an analysis that overlooks morphological constituency and which indexes faithfulness constraints to morphological environments undergenerates in the Choguita Raramuri case.

Fingerprints evaluation in systemic sclerosis

Systemic sclerosis (SSc), a connective tissue disease, involves vascular damage, autoimmunity and fibrosis.The aims of this study were: to identify a pattern of structural and biological changes of fingerprints (FP) in definite SSc patients and to establish it's validity in time at the second and third patient visit after 2, respective 6 months from the first analysis. We also evaluated the degradation of FP constituents from the first visit during a month time. In all SSc fingerprints, pore density was lower, papillary combs were more flattened and papillary grooves narrower than in controls. Epithelial cells desquamation process was accelerated in SSc versus controls. DNA levels were statistically significant higher but their decrease over time was faster in SSc FP versus controls FP. On the second and the third visits, morphological constituents of FP were significantly deteriorated versus first visit suggesting accelerated skin degradation in evolution of SSc. Fingerprint evaluation is a non-invasive, simple, observational method and it may become the fundation of future attempt to find a fingerprint pattern capable to sustain the diagnosis of SSc in subjects with early scleroderma features.

Masked morphological priming of compound constituents

Recent masked priming studies suggest that complex words are rapidly segmented into potential morphological constituents during initial visual word recognition. Much of this evidence involves affixation or other formally regular operations, leaving open the question of whether these effects rely heavily on the identification of a closed-class affix or other formal regularity. In two masked priming experiments with English transparent and opaque bimorphemic compound primes consisting solely of open-class morphemes, we find significant constituent priming, but no significant priming for purely orthographic overlap. We conclude that masked morphological priming generalizes across word-formation types to include compounds with no affix or other regular form. These results provide new evidence for across-the-board morphological-level segmentation during visual word recognition and for morpheme-based compound processing.

Are CORNER and BROTHER morphologically complex? Not in the long term

Previous studies haves shown that under masked priming conditions, CORNER primes CORN as strongly as TEACHER primes TEACH and more strongly than BROTHEL primes BROTH. This result has been taken as evidence of a purely structural level of representation at which words are decomposed into morphological constituents in a manner that is independent of semantics. The research reported here investigated the influence of semantic transparency on long-term morphological priming. Two experiments demonstrated that while lexical decisions were facilitated by semantically transparent primes like TEACHER, semantically opaque words like CORNER had no effect. Although differences in the nonword foils used in each experiment gave rise to somewhat different patterns of results, this difference in the effects of transparent and opaque primes was found in both experiments. The implications of this finding for accounts of morphological effects on visual word identification are discussed.

Morphological dynamics in compound processing

This paper explores the time-course of morphological processing of trimorphemic Finnish compounds. We find evidence for the parallel access to full-forms and morphological constituents diagnosed by the early effects of compound frequency, as well as early effects of left constituent frequency and family size. We also observe an interaction between compound frequency and both the left and the right constituent family sizes. Furthermore, our data show that suffixes embedded in the derived left constituent of a compound are efficiently used for establishing the boundary between compounds’ constituents. The success of segmentation of a compound is demonstrably modulated by the affixal salience of the embedded suffixes. We discuss implications of these findings for current models of morphological processing and propose a new model that views morphemes, combinations of morphemes and morphological paradigms as probabilistic sources of information that are interactively used in recognition of complex words.

Pál Pereszlényi and the development of morphological analysis in the early grammars of Hungarian

The morphological analysis of Hungarian in the early period of grammatical work was based on three interlaced traditions: Classical Graeco-Roman, Hebrew and German. These were applied to languages that were structurally very much unlike Hungarian. The evolution of morphological analysis was therefore a relatively slow and complicated process, whose milestones discussed in this paper, the four earliest grammars of Hungarian, all represent different stages of development. The grammar by Pal Pereszlenyi, which is analysed in some detail here, surpasses the earlier grammars in its acumen on at least three counts: the same set of analytical terms is applied in the description of nominal and verbal morphology; the notions of bound stem and relative stem are clearly recognised; a distinction is made between stems as morphological constituents and word forms serving as starting points of paradigms.

Morphological processing with deficient phonological short-term memory

This paper investigates the processing of Hebrew derivational morphology in an individual (S.E.) with deficient phonological short-term memory. In comparison to 10 age- and education-matched men, S.E. was impaired on digit span tasks and demonstrated no recency effect in word list recall. S.E. had low word retention span, but he exhibited phonological similarity and word length effects. His ability to make lexical decisions was intact. In a paired-associate test S.E. successfully learned semantically and morphologically related pairs but not phonologically related pairs, and his learning of nonwords was facilitated by the presence of Hebrew consonant roots. Semantic and morphological similarity enhanced immediate word recall. Results show that S.E. is capable of conducting morphological decomposition of Hebrew-derived words despite his phonological deficit, suggesting that transient maintenance of morphological constituents is independent of temporary storage and rehearsal of phonological codes, and that each is processed separately within short-term memory.

Understanding English word accentuation

We contrast two ways of representing English word stress or accent—that exemplified by Chomsky and Halle [Chomsky, N., Halle, M., 1968. The Sound Pattern of English. Harper & Row, New York] and by Garde [Garde, Paul, 1968. L’accent. Presses Universitaires de France, Paris], and that found in many English-language dictionaries. For Chomsky–Halle and for Garde, full vowels are always stressed; for the dictionary makers, full vowels can be either accented or unaccented. We argue for an analysis of English accentual patterns along the lines of the dictionary treatment of accents. The dictionary representations, with alternating accented and unaccented syllables, suggest a natural way of assigning foot structure to syllables. Feet can be ternary, binary, or unary, but the latter are permitted only word finally. All syllables are assigned to some foot, with the exception that there are some word-initial syllables that remain unfooted (and by implication, unaccented). For most English words neither foot structure nor the location of accents is part of the lexical entry. Hence, there must be a set of metrification rules for creating feet. The location of the accents then is easily derived from the generated foot structures. We show how the rules apply to various kinds of morphologically simple (underived) words. No additional mechanisms are required for morphologically complex forms. The metrification rules apply simultaneously to each morphological constituent. This manner of forming feet is not cyclic in accordance with the usual interpretation of that concept.

Non-Word Repetition in Children with Specific Language Impairment: A Deficit in Phonological Working Memory or in Long-Term Verbal Knowledge?

In this study we investigated the effects of long-term memory (LTM) verbal knowledge on short-term memory (STM) verbal recall in a sample of Italian children affected by different subtypes of specific language impairment (SLI). The aim of the study was to evaluate if phonological working memory (PWM) abilities of SLI children can be supported by LTM linguistic representations and if PWM performances can be differently affected in the various subtypes of SLI. We tested a sample of 54 children affected by Mixed Receptive-Expressive (RE), Expressive (Ex) and Phonological (Ph) SLI (DSM-IV - American Psychiatric Association, 1994) by means of a repetition task of words (W) and non-words (NW) differing in morphemic structure [morphological non-words (MNW), consisting of combinations of roots and affixes - and simple non-words - with no morphological constituency]. We evaluated the effects of lexical and morpho-lexical LTM representations on STM recall by comparing the repetition accuracy across the three types of stimuli. Results indicated that although SLI children, as a group, showed lower repetition scores than controls, their performance was affected similarly to controls by the type of stimulus and the experimental manipulation of the non-words (better repetition of W than MNW and NW, and of MNW than NW), confirming the recourse to LTM verbal representations to support STM recall. The influence of LTM verbal knowledge on STM recall in SLI improved with age and did not differ among the three types of SLI. However, the three types of SLI differed in the accuracy of their repetition performances (PMW abilities), with the Phonological group showing the best scores. The implications for SLI theory and practice are discussed.