Word Frequency Dominance and L2 Word Recognition

September 12, 2016Vocab@Tokyo

Meiji Gakuin University, Tokyo, Japan1

Overview• Introduction• Background• The Present Study• Results• Discussion• Conclusion

2

Yu TAMURA (Nagoya University)Mitsuhiro MORITA(Hiroshima University)Yoshito NISHIMURA (Nagoya University)

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Overview• Introduction• Background• The Present Study• Results• Discussion• Conclusion

4

• Morphology• Inflectional morphology

• -ed, -ing, 3rd-person -s, plural -s, -er

• Derivational morphology• prefix

• pre- (e.g., precondition), dis- (e.g., disagree)

• suffix• -able (e.g., wearable), -ish (e.g., boyish)

Introduction5

Morphological Processing

• Morphology• Inflectional morphology

• -ed, -ing, 3rd-person -s, plural -s, -er

• Derivational morphology• prefix

• pre- (e.g., precondition), dis- (e.g., disagree)

• suffix• -able (e.g., wearable), -ish (e.g., boyish)

Introduction6

Morphological Processing

• Morphology• Inflectional morphology

• -ed, -ing, 3rd-person -s, plural -s, -er

• Derivational morphology• prefix

• pre- (e.g., precondition), dis- (e.g., disagree)

• suffix• -able (e.g., wearable), -ish (e.g., boyish)

Introduction7

Morphological Processing

• Recognition process• Visual word recognition

• How morphology is processed in reading• Auditory word recognition

• How morphology is processed in listening

Introduction8

Morphological Processing

• Recognition process• Visual word recognition

• How morphology is processed in reading• Auditory word recognition

• How morphology is processed in listening

Introduction9

Morphological Processing

Findings of This Study• No evidence of direct access to the inflected

(plural) forms -> Morphological decomposition

10Introduction

Overview• Introduction• Background• The Present Study• Results• Discussion• Conclusion

11

Overview• Introduction• Background• The Present Study• Results• Discussion• Conclusion

12

• The more frequent, the faster• Three positions of the morphological processing

mechanism• Full-form storage model (e.g., Sereno &

Jongman, 1997)• Obligatory decomposition (e.g., Taft, 2004)• Dual-route model (e.g., Baayen, Dijkstra, &

Schreuder, 1997)

Background13

Frequency Effects

• The more frequent, the faster processing • Three positions of the morphological processing

mechanism• Full-form storage model (e.g., Sereno &

Jongman, 1997)• Obligatory decomposition (e.g., Taft, 2004)• Dual-route model (e.g., Baayen, Dijkstra, &

Schreuder, 1997)

Background14

Frequency Effects

• Full-form storage model (e.g., Sereno & Jongman, 1997)• Base forms and inflected forms

• stored separately• show frequency effects

Background15

Frequency Effects

rule rules

rule rules

• The more frequent, the faster processing • Three positions of the morphological processing

mechanism• Full-form storage model (e.g.,Sereno &

Jongman, 1997)• Obligatory decomposition (e.g., Taft, 2004)• Dual-route model (e.g., Baayen, Dijkstra, &

Schreuder, 1997)

Background16

Frequency Effects

• Obligatory decomposition (e.g., Taft, 2004)• Inflected forms

• are always decomposed• do not show frequency effects

Background17

Frequency Effects

rule rules

rule rules

• The more frequent, the faster processing • Three positions of the morphological processing

mechanism• Full-form storage model (e.g., Sereno &

Jongman, 1997)• Obligatory decomposition (e.g., Taft, 2004)• Dual-route model (e.g., Baayen, Dijkstra, &

Schreuder, 1997)

Background18

Frequency Effects

• Dual-route model (e.g., Baayen, Dijkstra, & Schreuder, 1997)• Frequently occurred inflected forms

• are processed as a whole• show frequency effects

Background19

Frequency Effects

kid kids

kid kids

rule rules

rule rules

High frequent inflected formsLow frequent inflected forms

faster

• Frequency difference between base forms and inflected forms• Singular-dominant nouns

• Singular (base) forms > plural (inflected) forms• e.g., ball, box

• Plural-dominant nouns• Plural (inflected) forms > singular forms (base)• e.g., kids, tears

Background20

Frequency Dominance

• Baayen et al. (1997)• Dutch• No Reaction Time (RT) difference between

• Plural dominant plurals and plural dominant singulars

• Highly frequent inflected forms would not be decomposed but processed as a whole

• Support dual-route model• New et al. (2004)

• French and English• Support Baayen et al. (1997)

Background21

Frequency Dominance

• Morita (2007)• Investigated whether the frequency of the

inflected words would affect the processing of the base forms

• Cumulative frequency (sg + pl) predicts the lexical decision time for native speakers of English

• -> dual-route or decomposition• Surface frequency (sg only) predicts the lexical

decision time for Japanese L2 learners of English• -> full-form strage?

Background22

Frequency Dominance

• How do L2 learners of English process and represent regularly inflected words?

• Hypothesis• If…

• frequent inflected forms < infrequent base forms -> highly frequent inflected forms are processed as

a whole• frequent inflected forms > infrequent base forms

-> inflected words are decomposed• frequent inflected forms > infrequent inflected forms

-> frequency of the base forms matter

Background23

Research Questions

Overview• Introduction• Background• The Present Study• Results• Discussion• Conclusion

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Overview• Introduction• Background• The Present Study• Results• Discussion• Conclusion

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• 72 Japanese undergraduate students

Table 1. Descriptive statistics of the TOEIC score

The Present Study26

Participants

N M SD Min MaxTOEIC score 72 575.42 104.19 325 800

1. Frequency list of nouns (both singular and plural forms) from British National Corpus (BNC)

2. 18 words which double or triple in frequency of singular form compared to plural form -> singular-dominant words

The Present Study27

Stimuli

3. 18 words which double or triple in frequency of plural form compared to singular form -> plural dominant words

4. 18 words whose frequency of singular and plural form was almost same. -> control words

The Present Study28

Stimuli

• The cumulative frequency (sg + pl) was controlled among the three groups

Table 2. Mean Frequency and SD in Parentheses

The Present Study29

Stimuli

k singular plural base

sg-domminant 18 69.865(25.849)

21.684(10.931)

91.549(34.342)

pl-dominant 18 22.571(18.661)

69.898(43.345)

92.469(59.779)

control 18 47.064(23.202)

43.893(24.664)

90.958(46.185)

Note. frequency is based on per million

The Present Study30

StimuliTable 3. List of Test Items

singular-dominant plural-dominant control

concept image parent proceeding topic element

film ball pound kid rabbit trend

science target standard tear bone secret

jacket video pupil resident store lesson

box hat individual finding principle firm

colour map detail critic horse step

bar context relation boot rule drug

network station resource participant function sport

college tower skill chemical plant document

• Judge whether the target words were real English words or not

• 54 test items (18*3) presented either in singular or plural form

• Carefully counterbalanced

• The same number of filler items were included

The Present Study31

Lexical Decision Task

• Incorrect responses removed (6.6%)• Outliers (M+3SD and RT below 200ms) removed (1.4%)• Generalized linear mixed-effect model (GLMM)

• Response variable• Raw RT

• Explanatory variable• Presentation (2 levels)

• singular or plural• Frequency dominance (3 levels)

• sg-dominant, pl-dominant, control • Post-hoc multiple comparison

The Present Study32

Analysis

Overview• Introduction• Background• The Present Study• Results• Discussion• Conclusion

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Overview• Introduction• Background• The Present Study• Results• Discussion• Conclusion

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35

Reaction Time

Results

k M SD 95%CILL UL

sg-domminant pl 9 838 246 818 858sg 9 765 232 747 783

pl-dominant pl 9 922 324 896 949sg 9 857 288 834 880

control pl 9 824 280 802 846sg 9 719 212 702 735

Table 4. Descriptive Statistics of Reaction Time (ms)

Note. N = 72. CI= Confidence Interval; LL = lower limit; UL = upper limit

Results36

Note. Error bar represents 95%CI

Results37

Note. Error bar represents 95%CI

Significant differences

Results38

Note. Error bar represents 95%CI

Results39

Note. Error bar represents 95%CI

Significant differences

No significant differences

Overview• Introduction• Background• The Present Study• Results• Discussion• Conclusion

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Overview• Introduction• Background• The Present Study• Results• Discussion• Conclusion

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• Singular forms judged faster than plural forms irrespective of the frequency dominance

• Singular forms• sg-dominant = control < pl-dominant

• Plural forms• sg-dominant = control < pl-dominant

Discussion42

Summary of the Results

• Singular forms judged faster than plural forms irrespective of the frequency dominance

• Singular forms• sg-dominant = control < pl-dominant

• Plural forms• sg-dominant = control < pl-dominant

Discussion43

Summary of the Results

• Singular forms judged faster than plural forms irrespective of the frequency dominance• Pl-dominant plurals did not show frequency

advantage• L2 learners always decompose plural

inflections

Discussion44

Morphological Processing

• Singular forms judged faster than plural forms irrespective of the frequency dominance

• Singular forms• sg-dominant = control < pl-dominant

• Plural forms• sg-dominant = control < pl-dominant

Discussion45

Summary of the Results

• Singular forms• sg-dominant = control < pl-dominant• Surface frequency advantage was only found

between sg-dominant and pl-dominant

• No clear evidence of the surface frequency effect• Frequency of the inflected forms had no effect on

the RT for the base forms

Discussion46

Morphological Processing

• Singular forms judged faster than plural forms irrespective of the frequency dominance

• Singular forms• sg-dominant = control < pl-dominant

• Plural forms• sg-dominant = control < pl-dominant

Discussion47

Summary of the Results

• Plural forms• sg-dominant = control < pl-dominant• No frequency advantage for pl-dominant plurals

• No evidence of direct access to the plural forms• High frequency inflected words were decomposed• Access latency for inflected forms might be

affected by base form frequency

Discussion48

Morphological Processing

• The experiment only focused on the surface frequency (cumulative frequency was controlled)

• The results were entirely on the basis of lexical decision task

-> priming task etc. might be needed

Discussion49

Limitations

Overview• Introduction• Background• The Present Study• Results• Discussion• Conclusion

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Overview• Introduction• Background• The Present Study• Results• Discussion• Conclusion

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• How do L2 learners of English process and represent regularly inflected words?• They decompose the inflected words

irrespective of frequency dominance-> Obligatory decomposition?• No RT difference between control words and

sg-dominant words• There still remains the possibility that L2

learners access abstract lexical entries which include both singular and plural forms

Conclusion52

Word Frequency Dominance and L2 Word Recognition

contact info Yu TamuraNagoya University

yutamura@nagoya-u.jp

http://www.tamurayu.wordpress.com/

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• Base form frequency seems to matter

• Inflected words always decomposed

• L2 learners access abstract lexical entries (sg + pl forms)

Baayen, R. H., Lieber, R., & Schreuder, R. (1997). The morphological complexity of simplex nouns. Linguistics, 35, 861–877. doi:10.1515/ling.1997.35.5.861

Morita, M. (2007) nihonjin eigo gakusyusya no meishi tansuukei ninshiki niokeru hinndo kouka: hyousou hindo to ruiseki hindo. [Frequency effects on recognition of singular nouns by Japanese learners of English: Surface frequency and cumulative frequency]. Bulletin of the Graduate School of Social & Cultural Systems at Yamagata University, 4, 9–19.

New, B., Brysbaert, M., Segui, J., Ferrand, L., & Rastle, K. (2004). The processing of singular and plural nouns in French and English. Journal of Memory and Language, 51, 568–585.

Sereno, J. A., & Jongman, A. (1997). Processing of English inflectional morphology. Memory & Cognition, 25, 425–437. doi:10.3758/BF03201119

Taft, M. (2004). Morphological decomposition and the reverse base frequency effect. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. A, Human Experimental Psychology, 57, 745–765.

References54

55

GLMM

Results

Note. Number of observation = 3581. N = 72; K = 54. Dominance: 1 = control, 2 = pl-dominant, 3 = sg-dominant

Random effectsFixed effects By Subject By Items

Parameters Estimate

SE t p SD SDIntercept 925.32 23.12 40.03 <.001 67.18 52.15Dominance2-1,3 85.87 23.60 3.64 <.001 — —Dominance3-1,2 -27.10 20.92 -1.29 .195 — —Presentation1-2 -70.23 5.57 -12.62 <.001 — —Dom2-1,3:Pres 8.39 14.30 0.59 .557Dom3-1,2:Pres -23.317 12.06 -1.93 .053 — —

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Post-hoc Multiple Comparison

Results

Dominance Estimate SE z p

control 65.26 9.16 7.12 <.0001

pl-dominant 56.87 10.85 5.24 <.0001

sg-dominant 88.57 8.52 10.39 <.0001

Simple main-effect of presentation (pl vs sg)

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Post-hoc Multiple Comparison

Results

Presentation comparison Estimate SE z p

pluralctrl - pl -81.68 24.56 -3.33 .003ctrl - sg 15.44 21.65 0.71 .756pl - sg 97.12 30.64 3.17 .004

singularctrl - pl -90.06 24.76 -3.64 <.001ctrl - sg 38.76 21.90 1.77 .179pl - sg 88.57 8.52 10.39 <.001

Simple main-effect of frequency dominance