Phonological Word Research Articles

Testing the Role of Phonology in Reading: Focus on Sentence Processing

Most reading research investigating the role of phonology in word recognition has focused on studies employing an individual word as the sole stimulus. The bulk of such research has offered support for the phonological recoding hypothesis, the conjecture that access to a printed word's meaning requires activation of the word's phonology (i.e., meaning is not typically activated via orthography alone). A criticism of such studies is that by presenting participants with only a single word on each experimental trial (a nonecological manipulation), participants may alter their typical strategy of reading in such a way as to artificially favor the phonological recoding hypothesis. The present study avoided a focus on single words by requiring participants to read sentences and paragraphs for comprehension. Experiment 1 showed that, in reading a paragraph of connected sentences, eliminating a letter in a word that altered the phonology was more deleterious than eliminating a letter that did. Experiment 2 focused on the reading of each sentence itself rather than on the paragraph and provided additional control conditions. The results were similar to those of Experiment 1, consistent with the phonological recoding hypothesis.

Sublexical units in aphasic jargon and in the standard language: Comparative analyses of neologisms in connected speech

Background: It is a well‐documented finding that phonemic speech errors in aphasia reflect certain characteristics of their intended targets. However, only few studies have investigated spontaneous speech productions of jargon‐aphasic patients, in which lexical targets may be completely unrecognisable (abstruse phonemic neologisms). There is some evidence that these neologisms correspond to the standard language concerning phonemic content and structure. Aims: The present study further explores similarities of aphasic neologisms and the standard language, to contribute to the discussion about the origin of non‐target‐related errors in jargon aphasia. It investigates whether similarities at the phoneme level can be confirmed even in connected, severely jargonised speech that does not allow identification of lexical targets. Moreover, it raises the question whether other sublexical units like syllables contribute to the formation of phonemic neologisms. Methods & Procedures: Neologisms in spontaneous speech of a German‐speaking jargon‐aphasic patient were compared to the standard language concerning phoneme and syllable inventory, structural aspects, and distributional frequencies of sublexical measures. Data of the standard language were derived from meta‐analyses of a German phonological word form database. Outcomes & Results: A strong relatedness to the standard language was demonstrated for the aphasic neologisms in connected speech. Similarities regarded phoneme inventory, phonotactics, and phoneme frequency distributions. The patient data point to a preferred use of high‐frequency phonemes and syllables in neologisms. In addition, a similar distribution of syllable frequencies and structures was observed in the neologisms and in standard German. Results indicate that syllable frequency serves as a predictor for the neologisms' distributional frequencies. Conclusions: The present study indicated that phonemic neologisms with no or weak evidence for a lexical origin still conformed to the phonological characteristics of the standard language, suggesting undisturbed segmental phonological processing. With respect to processing levels in speech production, results specifically pointed to a prominent role of syllabic units. The present findings are compatible with the assumption that syllabic representations, like structural information of syllables, are constrained in neologism formation.

Phonological awareness and word reading in the pre-school years

Phonological awareness and word reading in the pre-school years

Writing two words as one: Word boundary errors in a German case of acquired surface dysgraphia

Patients with surface dysgraphia are assumed to have an impairment of a lexical–semantic writing routine. In line with the suggested functional deficit, words with irregular orthography, particularly such of low frequency, are affected. Typically, errors are phonologically plausible (e.g., laugh→laf) suggesting the use of a sublexical phonological writing route. In the present brief report, a patient (MO) with surface dysgraphia was required to write phrases to dictation. Frequently, he reproduced short phrases (“lass das”, ‘leave it’) as one word (<LASDAS>) and tended to delete such segments that are deleted during syllabification in spoken production. For example, MO wrote “kannst du?” (‘can you?’), formally spoken as /kanst du:/ but usually spoken as /kanstu:/, as <KANS TU>. It is suggested that the patient uses ‘phonological words’ (syllabified phonological representations; cf. Levelt, W. J. M., Roelofs, A., & Meyer, A. S. (1999). A theory of lexical access in speech production. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22, 1–75.) as input to his phoneme–grapheme conversion mechanism.

A Comparison of Two Path Models for Predicting Reading Fluency

Federal mandates such as No Child Left Behind and the Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 are prompting elementary schools to carefully monitor early literacy outcomes. The shift toward monitoring early literacy outcomes requires the identification of valid sublexical fluency measures. In the current study, sublexical fluency measures that focus on phonological awareness, phoneme decoding, letter naming, and automatic word recognition are used to predict reading fluency. Results of two path models are discussed within the context of reading acquisition and a prevention-oriented approach.

On the way from morphology to phonology: German linking elements and the role of the phonological word

German linking elements are sometimes classified as inflectional affixes, sometimes as derivational affixes, and in any case as morphological units with at least seven realisations (e.g. -s-, -es-, -(e)n-, -e-). This article seeks to show that linking elements are hybrid elements situated between morphology and phonology. On the one hand, they have a clear morphological status since they occur only within compounds (and before a very small set of suffixes) and support the listener in decoding them. On the other hand, they also have to be analysed on the phonological level, as will be shown in this article. Thus, they are marginal morphological units on the pathway to phonology (including prosodics). Although some alloforms can sometimes be considered former inflectional endings and in some cases even continue to demonstrate some inflectional behaviour (such as relatedness to gender and inflection class), they are on their way to becoming markers of ill-formed phonological words. In fact, linking elements, above all the linking -s-, which is extremely productive, help the listener decode compounds containing a bad phonological word as their first constituent, such as Geburt+s+tag ‘birthday’ or Religion+s+unterricht ‘religious education’. By marking the end of a first constituent that differs from an unmarked monopedal phonological word, the linking element aids the listener in correctly decoding and analysing the compound. German compounds are known for their length and complexity, both of which have increased over time—along with the occurrence of linking elements, especially -s-. Thus, a profound instance of language change can be observed in contemporary German, one indicating its typological shift from syllable language to word language.

The morphology-phonology interface: Isolating to polysynthetic languages

Given the substantial variation in the nature of the grammatical word (GW) across languages, this paper addresses the question of whether the Phonological Word (PW) exhibits the same degree of variation or rather abstracts away from it due to the typically flatter nature of the phonological hierarchy. Various types of languages are examined, focusing on isolating and polysynthetic languages—opposite ends of a word structure continuum. It is demonstrated that, indeed, the PW exhibits substantially less variation across languages than might be expected on the basis of the differences in GW structure. Furthermore, it is shown that an additional constituent (i.e., the Clitic Group, renamed Composite Group) is required between the PW and the Phonological Phrase to fully account for the interface between morpho-syntactic and phonological structures.

Phonological and orthographic spelling in high‐functioning adult dyslexics

Despite a history of reading or spelling difficulties, some adults attain age-appropriate spelling skills and succeed at university. We compared the spelling of 29 such high-functioning dyslexics with that of 28 typical students, matched on general spelling ability, and controlling for vocabulary and non-verbal intelligence. Participants wrote derived real and pseudo words, whose spelling relationship to their base forms was categorized as phonologically simple (apt-aptly), orthographically simple (deceit-deceitful), phonologically complex (ash-ashen), or orthographically complex (plenty-plentiful). Dyslexic participants spelled all word and pseudoword categories more poorly than controls. Both groups spelled simple phonological words best. Dyslexics were particularly poor at spelling simple orthographic words, whose letter patterns and rules must likely be memorized. In contrast, dyslexics wrote more plausible spellings of orthographic than phonological pseudowords, but this might be an artefact of their more variable spelling attempts. These results suggest that high-functioning dyslexics make some use of phonological skills to spell familiar words, but they have difficulty in memorizing orthographic patterns, which makes it difficult to spell unfamiliar words consistently in the absence of sufficient phonological cues or orthographic rules.

The prosody of second position clitic placement and focus in Croatian

Since Browne 1974, the placement of second position clitics in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian has inspired debate about interaction at the syntax-phonology interface. The placement of these clitics can alternate quite freely: either after the first phonological word or after the first syntactic constituent. While it's generally agreed that prosodic phonology, in addition to morphosyntax, plays a role in clitic placement in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, the prosodic patterns for the different placements have not been studied acoustically. In addition, it has been suggested that clitic placement and pragmatic focus may interact (Bošković 2001), but this has not been systematically studied. We recorded adult Zagreb Croatian speakers producing subject noun phrases with initially stressed trisyllabic adjectives and nouns in transitive sentences. We varied clitic placement (after the first word or first constituent) and focus domain (broad focus, and narrow focus on adjective, noun, both the adjective and the noun, or the entire noun phrase) and controlled for dialect and pitch accents. Preliminary results from three speakers indicate that gross differences in prosodic patterns occur only as a function of focus domain but not clitic placement. Further work will confirm if these patterns hold for more speakers and if clitic placement is correlated with finer-grained prosodic differences.

Lexical retrieval and semantic knowledge in patients with left inferior temporal lobe lesions

Background: It has been proposed that anomia following left inferior temporal lobe lesions may have two different underlying mechanisms with distinct neural substrates. Specifically, naming impairment following damage to more posterior regions (BA 37) has been considered to result from a disconnection between preserved semantic knowledge and phonological word forms (pure anomia), whereas anomia following damage to anterior temporal regions (BAs 38, 20/21) has been attributed to the degradation of semantic representations (semantic anomia). However, the integrity of semantic knowledge in patients with pure anomia has not been demonstrated convincingly, nor were lesions in these cases necessarily confined to BA 37. Furthermore, evidence of semantic anomia often comes from individuals with bilateral temporal lobe damage, so it is unclear whether unilateral temporal lobe lesions are sufficient to produce significant semantic impairment. This research was supported by a Graduate Imaging Fellowship from the University of Arizona and by NIH grants RO1DC008286 and RO1DC07464. Scans were funded through Arizona Alzheimer's Research Consortium, Cognition and NeuroImaging Lab, Arizona Department of Health Services HB2354. Many thanks to Jen Parrott, Kristin Boruff, and Cathy West for their time and assistance. The authors thank Mark Borgstrom, statistical consultant at the University of Arizona, for his assistance with this project. We also thank Chris Rorden for advice regarding lesion analyses. Aims: The main goals of this study were to determine whether anomia following unilateral left inferior temporal lobe damage reflected a loss of semantic knowledge or a post‐semantic deficit in lexical retrieval and to identify the neuroanatomical correlates of the naming impairment. Methods & Procedures: Eight individuals who underwent left anterior temporal lobectomy (L ATL) and eight individuals who sustained left posterior cerebral artery strokes (L PCA) completed a battery of language measures that assessed lexical retrieval and semantic processing, and 16 age‐ and education‐matched controls also completed this battery. High‐resolution structural brain scans were collected to conduct lesion analyses. Outcomes & Results: Performance of L ATL and L PCA patients was strikingly similar, with both groups demonstrating naming performance ranging from moderately impaired to unimpaired. Anomia in both groups occurred in the context of mild deficits to semantic knowledge, which manifested primarily as greater difficulty in naming living things than nonliving things and greater difficulty in processing visual/perceptual as opposed to functional/associative semantic attributes. Lesion analyses indicated that both patient groups sustained damage to anterior inferior temporal lobe regions implicated in semantic processing. Conclusions: These results contribute to a better understanding of the cognitive mechanism of naming impairment in patients with temporal lobe damage and support the notion that pure anomia and semantic anomia represent two endpoints along a continuum of semantic impairment. Unilateral left temporal lobe lesions in our patients resulted in relatively mild semantic deficits that were apparent primarily in lexical production tasks, whereas severe semantic impairment likely requires bilateral temporal lobe damage.

Greek object clitic pronouns: a typological survey of their grammatical properties

In this paper, we review the basic morphosyntactic and phonological properties of object clitic pronouns in Standard Greek. More specifically, we discuss the constraints on the combinatorial properties of clitic clusters and present evidence in support of the out-of-cycle adjunct status of clitic-doubled DP-objects. We then account for the distribution of object clitics with respect to the verb by means of a cliticization movement rule. Finally, we show that there is an asymmetry in the way object clitics are prosodically organized, depending on their position in relation to the verb. Being always a part of the phonological word of their verbal host, enclitics choose to incorporate to it whereas proclitics opt for prosodic adjunction.

“Case suffixes”, postpositions, and the phonological word in Hungarian

In this article I propose a new construction algorithm for the phonological word in Hungarian. Based on a detailed discussion of the differences between so-called ‘postpositions’ and ‘case suffixes’, I show that both types of adpositional elements are of the same morphosyntactic category, and that phonological word status depends not on an arbitrary division between affixes and syntactically free items, but on phonological properties of the respective adpositions: Bisyllabic adpositions form phonological words on their own, while monosyllabic adpositions are integrated into the phonological word of their lexical head. Generalizing this result, I argue that all functional elements of Hungarian traditionally called ‘inflectional affixes’ are syntactically independent functional heads integrated into the phonological word of a preceding lexical head because they are prosodically too small. I show that apparently bisyllabic inflectional affixes must either be decomposed into different markers or are underlyingly monosyllabic, and develop a ranking of optimality-theoretic alignment constraints implementing the construction algorithm for the phonological word in formal detail.

Directional asymmetries in the morphology and phonology of words, with special reference to Bantu

This article is concerned with two types of word-level asymmetries and their interaction: left-right asymmetries and stem-word asymmetries. Two left-right asymmetries are examined from a wide range of languages, one morphological (the predominance of suffixation over prefixation), one phonological (the preference for anticipatory over perseverative phonology). Since phonological processes are often triggered by features which originate in roots, a second asymmetry is also addressed: the tendency for suffixes to be more tightly bound to roots than prefixes. Asymmetries between stem- vs. word phonology are examined in Bantu, where suffixes are incorporated into a derived stem domain, from which prefixes are typically excluded. This root+suffix stem domain is shown to be the locus of phonological activity in Proto-Bantu and throughout the large Bantu family, which divides into two typological zones: (i) Northwest Bantu languages, which impose a maximal size condition and stringent consonant distribution constraints on stems; (ii) Central Bantu languages, which do not restrict the size or consonant distribution of stems, but frequently impose a minimal size condition on words. The study presents a number of generalizations concerning such asymmetries and identifies questions for future research.

Phonological and morphological domains in Kyirong Tibetan

A number of phonological generalizations in the Kyirong dialect of Tibetan are argued to require reference to rules or constraints referring to the syllable or the phonological word (pword). The latter domain is significant because it requires three distinct representations for suffix-stem combinations, depending on the particular suffix involved: (a) the stem and suffix form one pword, (b) the suffix lies outside of the pword of the stem and is attached to a higher prosodic constituent, and (c) the stem and suffix are separate pwords. In addition, one phonological process will be argued to operate at the left edge of a morphological domain, i.e., the ‘stem’.

The California School Psychologist Provides Valuable Information to Promote Reading Success Among Students

This volume of The California School Psychologist provides valuable information to promote the reading success of students, as well as many other informative articles addressing response-to-intervention; the education of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and questioning (LGBTQ) students; and school-based interventions for students with autism. Each of these articles provides valuable information for school psychologists and other professionals working in the schools, and also contributes to the literature and scholarship that aims to promote the educational success of all students. Previous articles published in The California School Psychologist, including the recent volumes addressing a) school engagement, b) strength-based assessment, c) response to intervention (RTI), d) autism, and e) students with emotional or behavioral disorders, are available on-line at www.education.ucsb.edu/school-psychology and at www.casponline.org (CASP members only). The first article (Christo & Davis, 2008), shares the results of a study that examined the relationships between the cognitive processes of rapid naming, phonological processing and various literacy skills, using data from 65 students in grades two through five. This study used multiple measures, including; phonological processing, rapid naming, reading comprehension, isolated and nonsense word reading, and spelling. Regression analyses revealed that rapid naming was a stronger predictor of word reading, reading comprehension and spelling, relative to phonological processing. Decoding skills were found to account for the largest amount of variance in word reading and spelling. The authors discuss the importance of considering these results when assessing and designing interventions with reading disabled children. Based on the results of this study, the authors emphasize that psychologists should assess underlying processes of rapid naming and phonological processing to better understand the student’s skills, and inform intervention strategies. A guide for school psychologists to use in the consultation process when working with teachers to address students’ reading difficulties is provided in the second article (Lilles, Griffiths, Lee, Cardenas, Chacko, & Jimerson, 2008). This article details important facets of instructional consultation and important considerations to take into account including: a) entering the consultation relationship, b) effectively identifying the problem and underlying cause, c) identification of the appropriate intervention, monitoring implementation integrity, and d) the termination of the consultation relationship. This article also provides information regarding possible effective intervention strategies, resources to obtain additional information, and a valuable checklist for school psychologists. The authors encourage school psychologists to use a consultation process to contribute resources and support to teachers to improve student reading ability, and prevent negative outcomes associated with poor reading skills. The third article (Huang, Nelson, & Nelson, 2008) reports the results of a study designed to investigate increases in reading fluency following a research-based tutoring method using repeated reading, which was implemented with two second-grade students. This study involved two high school students who trained to be the tutors to provide the directed repeated reading experience. In addition, one parent and one

Homographic and heterographic homophones in speech production: Does orthography matter?

This paper investigates homophone naming performance in an individual with impaired word retrieval. The aim of the study is to investigate the status of homophone representations using treatment of homophone picture naming in aphasia. The focus of this paper is the representation of heterographic homophones (words which sound the same but are spelled differently, e.g., ‘knight’ vs. ‘night’). Additionally, we replicate and expand previous findings regarding homographic homophones of Biedermann and Nickels (2008) in English and Biedermann et al. (2002), in German. Two theoretical positions about the mental representation of homophones are tested. First, do homophones – regardless of whether they are spelled the same or differently – share a phonological word form (e.g., Levelt et al., 1999; Dell, 1990)? Or second, do they have independent phonological word forms? (e.g., Caramazza et al., 2001; Miozzo and Caramazza, 2005)? In addition, might it be the case that homographic and heterographic homophones behave differently in word production reflecting different word form representations? These theoretical accounts are put to the test by looking at the generalisation of improvement following the treatment of homophone naming in aphasia, in particular, whether picture naming improves for both homophone meanings if only one is treated using a phonological cueing hierarchy. Treated and untreated homophones improved significantly, regardless of their spelling. Homographic and heterographic homophones showed the same pattern of generalisation. There was no generalisation for phonologically related controls. The pattern of generalisation extends our previous findings (Biedermann et al., 2002; Biedermann and Nickels, 2008) by showing evidence that heterographic homophones benefit to the same extent as homographic homophones. These results are interpreted as favouring a theory where both homographic and heterographic homophones share a single phonological representation. It is inferred that facilitation of naming takes place at the level of phonological representations, where orthography seems to have no influence.

The representation of homophones: More evidence from the remediation of anomia

This paper compares two theoretical positions regarding the mental representation of homophones: first, that homophones have one phonological word form but two grammatical representations (lemmas, e.g., Levelt et al., 1999; Dell, 1990), or second, that they have two separate phonological word forms (e.g., Caramazza et al., 2001). The adequacy of these two theoretical accounts for explaining the pattern of generalisation obtained in the treatment of homophone naming in aphasia is investigated. Two single cases are presented, where phonological treatment techniques are used to improve word retrieval. Treatment comprised picture naming of one member of a homophone pair using a phonological cueing hierarchy. A significant improvement in word retrieval was found for both the treated and the untreated homophones, while there was no improvement for phonologically and semantically related controls. It is argued that the data support a shared representation for homophones at the word form level. However, current theories cannot explain the pattern of generalisation found without the addition of a mechanism for repetition priming (e.g., suggested by Wheeldon and Monsell, 1992) and feedback between word form and lemmas to explain the results.

Clitics in English

This article presents a systematic account of the approximately sixty grammatical elements in English which can function as a free form (an independent phonological word) or as a clitic—nominal determiners; prepositions; conjunction and relator; subject, object and possessive pronouns; auxiliaries; there and not. Their properties are assessed in terms of the general typological parameters of clitics. Finally, the grammatical behaviour of phrasal verbs is explained in terms of the behaviour of clitic pronouns.

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.

A Neural Signature of Phonological Access: Distinguishing the Effects of Word Frequency from Familiarity and Length in Overt Picture Naming

Cognitive models of word production correlate the word frequency effect (i.e., the fact that words which appear with less frequency take longer to produce) with an increased processing cost to activate the whole-word (lexical) phonological representation. We performed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while subjects produced overt naming responses to photographs of animals and manipulable objects that had high name agreement but were of varying frequency, with the purpose of identifying neural structures participating specifically in activating whole-word phonological representations, as opposed to activating lexical semantic representations or articulatory-motor routines. Blood oxygen level-dependent responses were analyzed using a parametric approach based on the frequency with which each word produced appears in the language. Parallel analyses were performed for concept familiarity and word length, which provided indices of semantic and articulatory loads. These analyses permitted us to identify regions related to word frequency alone, and therefore, likely to be related specifically to activation of phonological word forms. We hypothesized that the increased processing cost of producing lower-frequency words would correlate with activation of the left posterior inferotemporal (IT) cortex, the left posterior superior temporal gyrus (pSTG), and the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). Scan-time response latencies demonstrated the expected word frequency effect. Analysis of the fMRI data revealed that activity in the pSTG was modulated by frequency but not word length or concept familiarity. In contrast, parts of IT and IFG demonstrated conjoint frequency and familiarity effects, and parts of both primary motor regions demonstrated conjoint effects of frequency and word length. The results are consistent with a model of word production in which lexical-semantic and lexical-phonological information are accessed by overlapping neural systems within posterior and anterior language-related cortices, with pSTG specifically involved in accessing lexical phonology.