Authors:

Reid, A.A. & MARSLEN-WILSON, W.D.

Reference:

Year of publication:

2003

CBU number:

5720

Abstract:

Research into the processing and structure of the mental lexicon requires systematic cross-linguistic comparisons. Here we report three experiments which provide typologically new evidence from Polish, using immediate cross-modal and delayed auditory-auditory repetition priming tasks. Experiments 1 and 2 focused on stem and affix priming, while Experiment 3 tested for suffix-suffix interference effects. Experiment 1 also examines the role of semantic transparency in the representation of morphologically complex forms. Robust stem priming was found throughout. Affix priming was also present, although strongest for secondary imperfective forms, which shared two affixes. Clear suffix-suffix interference was found for prime/target pairs which shared the same stem and had different derivational suffixes, in line with results for English, but not for French and German. Less clear results were found for pairs which shared the same stem but where the prime had an inflectional and the target a derivational suffix. There was a clear effect of semantic transparency with priming for transparent and no priming for opaque pairs, in line with English and French, but not Semitic languages. Overall, the pattern of results for Polish mirrors quite closely the pattern for English, and broadly supports a combinatorial approach to lexical representation.