[PS-2.14] Irrespective of meaning: the acquisition of morphological structure in German 11-12 year olds

Smolka, E.

Department of Linguistics, University of Konstanz, Germany

Studies on morphological effects in Indo-European languages like English assume that lexical representations are determined by meaning compositionality. Morphologically complex words that are semantically transparent (e.g. disobey) are represented via their base {obey}, whereas words that are semantically opaque (e.g. release) must be represented as whole words {release}. In contrast, previous findings in German have shown that morphologically related verbs activate their base, even if they are not semantically related with it (e.g., VERSTEHEN-stehen, ‘UNDERSTAND-stand’), indicating that morphologically complex verbs in German are represented via their base regardless of meaning compositionality. The aim of this study was to examine how such lexical representations develop. Two overt visual priming experiments (500 ms SOA) examined the acquisition of lexical representations of complex verbs in German by testing ninety 11-12 year-old children and sixty adults. Relative to matched unrelated conditions, the priming of prefixed verbs to base verbs was compared between (a) purely semantically related verbs (VORANGEHEN-führen, ‘ANTECEDE-guide’), (b) morphologically and semantically related verbs (ANFÜHREN-führen, ‘HEAD-guide’), (c) purely morphologically related verbs (VERFÜHREN-führen, ‘SEDUCE-guide’), and (d) form-related verbs (BEFÜHLEN-führen, ‘PALPATE-guide’). Similar to adults, children showed neither semantic nor form effects, but strong morphological effects: Morphological relatedness facilitated responses even without meaning relatedness. However, unlike with adults, this morphological facilitation was smaller than that by shared morphological and meaning relatedness. While the former finding indicates that complex verbs in German are lexically represented via their base {führ} regardless of meaning compositionality, the latter finding indicates that the children’s system requires further exposure to morphological regularities so as to generalize morphological structure above and beyond meaning compositionality, as is the case in the adult system. These data provide evidence that morphological regularities are acquired in morphologically rich systems like German.