Authors:

BOUDELAA, S., & MARSLEN-WILSON, W.D.

Reference:

Year of publication:

2001

CBU number:

4183

Abstract:

Standard views of morphology in Modern Standard Arabic hold that surface word forms comprise at least two morphemes: a three consonantal root conveying semantic meaning and a word pattern carrying syntactic information. An alternative account claims that semantic information is carried by a bi-consonantal morphological unit called the etymon. Accordingly, in the form [batara] the core meaning is carried not by the tri-consonantal root morpheme {btr} but by the etymon morpheme {b,t} which surfaces in other forms like [batta] "sever", [batala] "cut off" with the same meaning "cutting". Previous experimental research in Semitic languages has assumed the triconsonantal root/word pattern approach. In cross-modal and masked priming experiments we ask whether the etymon, as a more fine grained two consonantal morphological unit, can yield the morphological priming effects typically obtained with triconsonantal root morphemes. The results clearly show that two words sharing an etymon do facilitate each other both in cross-modal and masked priming even though they do not share a root, controlling for semantic and for form overlap effects. The bearing of these results on theories of morphological processing and representation is discussed.