Distinct orthography boosts morphophonological discrimination: vowel raising in Bengali verb inflections

<p>This study is concerned with how vowel alternation, in combination with and without orthographic reflection of the vowel change, affects lexical access and the discrimination of morphologically related forms. Bengali inflected verb forms provide an ideal test case, since present tense verb...

全面介绍

书目详细资料
Main Authors: Althaus, N, Kotzor, S, Schuster, S, Lahiri, A
格式: Journal article
语言:English
出版: Elsevier 2022
_version_ 1826309468747464704
author Althaus, N
Kotzor, S
Schuster, S
Lahiri, A
author_facet Althaus, N
Kotzor, S
Schuster, S
Lahiri, A
author_sort Althaus, N
collection OXFORD
description <p>This study is concerned with how vowel alternation, in combination with and without orthographic reflection of the vowel change, affects lexical access and the discrimination of morphologically related forms. Bengali inflected verb forms provide an ideal test case, since present tense verb forms undergo phonologically conditioned, predictable vowel raising. The mid-to-high alternations, but not the low-to-mid ones, are represented in the orthography. This results in three different cases: items with no change (<em>NoDiff</em>), items with a phonological change not represented in the orthography (<em>PronDiff</em>) and items for which both phonology and orthography change (<em>OrthPronDiff</em>).<br><br> To determine whether these three cases differ in terms of lexical access and discrimination, we conducted two experiments. Experiment 1 was a cross-modal lexical decision task with auditory primes (1<sup>st</sup> <span class="small-caps">person</span> and 3<sup>rd</sup> <span class="small-caps">person</span> forms, e.g. [lek<sup>h</sup>e] or [lik<sup>h</sup>i]) and visual targets (verbal noun; e.g. [lek<sup>h</sup>e]). Experiment 2 uses eye tracking in a fragment completion task, in which auditory fragments (first syllable of 1<sup>st</sup> or 3<sup>rd</sup> person form, e.g. [le-] from [lek<sup>h</sup>e]) were to be matched to one of two visual targets (full 1<sup>st</sup> and 3<sup>rd</sup>rd <span class="small-caps">person</span> forms, [lek<sup>h</sup>e] vs. [lik<sup>h</sup>i] in Bengali script).<br><br> While the lexical decision task, a global measure of lexical access, did not show a difference between the cases, the eye-tracking experiment revealed effects of both phonology and orthography. Discrimination accuracy in the <em>OrthPronDiff</em> condition (vowel alternation represented in the orthography) was high. In the <em>PronDiff</em> condition, where phonologically differing forms are represented by the same graphemes, manual responses were at chance, although eye movements revealed that match and non-match were discriminated. Thus, our results indicate that phonological alternations which are not represented in spelling are difficult to process, whereas having orthographically distinct forms boosts discrimination performance, implying orthographically influenced mental phonological representations.</p>
first_indexed 2024-03-07T07:34:44Z
format Journal article
id oxford-uuid:4f30363e-c859-46f8-bcae-cbe4abd3d2ea
institution University of Oxford
language English
last_indexed 2024-03-07T07:34:44Z
publishDate 2022
publisher Elsevier
record_format dspace
spelling oxford-uuid:4f30363e-c859-46f8-bcae-cbe4abd3d2ea2023-03-06T15:26:54ZDistinct orthography boosts morphophonological discrimination: vowel raising in Bengali verb inflectionsJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:4f30363e-c859-46f8-bcae-cbe4abd3d2eaEnglishSymplectic ElementsElsevier 2022Althaus, NKotzor, SSchuster, SLahiri, A<p>This study is concerned with how vowel alternation, in combination with and without orthographic reflection of the vowel change, affects lexical access and the discrimination of morphologically related forms. Bengali inflected verb forms provide an ideal test case, since present tense verb forms undergo phonologically conditioned, predictable vowel raising. The mid-to-high alternations, but not the low-to-mid ones, are represented in the orthography. This results in three different cases: items with no change (<em>NoDiff</em>), items with a phonological change not represented in the orthography (<em>PronDiff</em>) and items for which both phonology and orthography change (<em>OrthPronDiff</em>).<br><br> To determine whether these three cases differ in terms of lexical access and discrimination, we conducted two experiments. Experiment 1 was a cross-modal lexical decision task with auditory primes (1<sup>st</sup> <span class="small-caps">person</span> and 3<sup>rd</sup> <span class="small-caps">person</span> forms, e.g. [lek<sup>h</sup>e] or [lik<sup>h</sup>i]) and visual targets (verbal noun; e.g. [lek<sup>h</sup>e]). Experiment 2 uses eye tracking in a fragment completion task, in which auditory fragments (first syllable of 1<sup>st</sup> or 3<sup>rd</sup> person form, e.g. [le-] from [lek<sup>h</sup>e]) were to be matched to one of two visual targets (full 1<sup>st</sup> and 3<sup>rd</sup>rd <span class="small-caps">person</span> forms, [lek<sup>h</sup>e] vs. [lik<sup>h</sup>i] in Bengali script).<br><br> While the lexical decision task, a global measure of lexical access, did not show a difference between the cases, the eye-tracking experiment revealed effects of both phonology and orthography. Discrimination accuracy in the <em>OrthPronDiff</em> condition (vowel alternation represented in the orthography) was high. In the <em>PronDiff</em> condition, where phonologically differing forms are represented by the same graphemes, manual responses were at chance, although eye movements revealed that match and non-match were discriminated. Thus, our results indicate that phonological alternations which are not represented in spelling are difficult to process, whereas having orthographically distinct forms boosts discrimination performance, implying orthographically influenced mental phonological representations.</p>
spellingShingle Althaus, N
Kotzor, S
Schuster, S
Lahiri, A
Distinct orthography boosts morphophonological discrimination: vowel raising in Bengali verb inflections
title Distinct orthography boosts morphophonological discrimination: vowel raising in Bengali verb inflections
title_full Distinct orthography boosts morphophonological discrimination: vowel raising in Bengali verb inflections
title_fullStr Distinct orthography boosts morphophonological discrimination: vowel raising in Bengali verb inflections
title_full_unstemmed Distinct orthography boosts morphophonological discrimination: vowel raising in Bengali verb inflections
title_short Distinct orthography boosts morphophonological discrimination: vowel raising in Bengali verb inflections
title_sort distinct orthography boosts morphophonological discrimination vowel raising in bengali verb inflections
work_keys_str_mv AT althausn distinctorthographyboostsmorphophonologicaldiscriminationvowelraisinginbengaliverbinflections
AT kotzors distinctorthographyboostsmorphophonologicaldiscriminationvowelraisinginbengaliverbinflections
AT schusters distinctorthographyboostsmorphophonologicaldiscriminationvowelraisinginbengaliverbinflections
AT lahiria distinctorthographyboostsmorphophonologicaldiscriminationvowelraisinginbengaliverbinflections