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Testing the stem dominance hypothesis: meaning analysis of inflected words and prepositional phrases.

ABSTRACT: We tested the hypothesis that lexical-semantic access of inflected words is governed by the word stem. Object drawings overlaid with a dot/arrow marking position/movement were matched with corresponding linguistic expressions like "from the house". To test whether the stem dominates lexical-semantic access irrespective of its position, we used Swedish prepositional phrases (locative information via preposition immediately preceding the stem) or Finnish case-inflected words (locative information via suffix immediately following the stem). Both in monolingual Swedish and in bilingual Finnish-Swedish speakers, correct stems with incorrect prepositions/case-endings were hardest to reject. This finding supports the view that the stem is indeed the dominant unit in meaning access of inflected words.

SUBMITTER: Lehtonen M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3968051 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Testing the stem dominance hypothesis: meaning analysis of inflected words and prepositional phrases.

Lehtonen Minna M Harrer Gabor G Wande Erling E Laine Matti M

PloS one 20140327 3

We tested the hypothesis that lexical-semantic access of inflected words is governed by the word stem. Object drawings overlaid with a dot/arrow marking position/movement were matched with corresponding linguistic expressions like "from the house". To test whether the stem dominates lexical-semantic access irrespective of its position, we used Swedish prepositional phrases (locative information via preposition immediately preceding the stem) or Finnish case-inflected words (locative information ...[more]

PMID: 24676218

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