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Title:
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German ver-Verbs: Internal Word Structure and Lexical Processing
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Author:
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Matthias Schirmeier
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Email:
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click here to access email
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Degree Awarded:
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University of Alberta
, Department of Linguistics
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Degree Date:
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2004
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Linguistic Subfield(s):
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Psycholinguistics
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Subject Language(s):
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German, Standard
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Director(s):
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Bruce Derwing
Gary Libben
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Abstract:
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This dissertation investigates the visual word recognition of German verbs containing the inseparable prefix ver- (e.g., verbittern ‘to embitter’) in an experimental setting, using data obtained from adult native speakers of German. More specifically, it investigates the roles of morphology, morpheme salience, stimulus effects, and task effects in the lexical processing of these complex words. Although, on the surface, ver-verbs appear to constitute a homogeneous group, a closer inspection reveals subtle descriptive differences in their internal structure,namely, the existence of putative adjectival, nominal, verbal, and (synchronically) bound component forms such as those in verbittern ‘to embitter’ (ver-Adjective), verkleiden ‘to disguise’ (ver-Noun), verstopfen ‘to block’ (ver-Verb), and vergeuden ‘to waste’ (ver-Bound), respectively. The template [ver[ROOT](e)n] can serve to show the commonality of these forms, which, from a descriptive point of view, differ only in their roots. This, in turn,provides a controlled framework in which the effects of root differences could be systematically explored. The results of a series of priming tasks, lexical decision tasks, and meta-linguistic judgment tasks suggest that morphology plays a role in the lexical processing of these verbs. More specifically, differential effects across the four subsets suggest the
importance of morpheme salience. However, these two factors are also influenced by the type of stimulus and task employed. Overall, this suggests the existence of two kinds of internal structure for ver-verbs: a hierarchical right-branching structure for items in the Verb and Bound subsets, and a flat structure for items in the Adjective subset. Items in the Noun subset are split between those two alternatives as a function of base type.
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