Phonological activation in anaphoric lexical access (ALA).

Area of Science:

• Psycholinguistics
• Cognitive Science
• Computational Linguistics

Background:

• Anaphoric lexical access (ALA) is proposed to target word lemmas, not lexemes.
• The word frequency effect is known to reside at the lexeme level.
• Previous models predict ALA should not show frequency effects, but this conflicts with phonological priming data.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explain how phonological priming occurs if ALA targets lemmas.
• To propose "incidental" lemma-to-lexeme activation as the mechanism for phonological priming.
• To demonstrate that anaphor reading times reflect lemma search times, not lexeme activation.

Main Methods:

• Theoretical argumentation regarding lemma vs. lexeme access in ALA.
• Experimental investigation of lemma-access and its effect on lexeme activation.
• Analysis of reading times to differentiate lemma search from lexeme activation.

Main Results:

• Anaphoric lexical access (ALA) primarily involves lemma retrieval.
• Phonological priming at anaphor sites is explained by incidental lemma-to-lexeme activation.
• Experimental results support the claim that lemma access can incidentally activate lexemes without a frequency effect.

Conclusions:

• Anaphor comprehension relies on lemma access, which is independent of word frequency.
• Incidental lexeme activation during ALA accounts for phonological priming.
• Reading times in ALA tasks reflect lemma search duration, not lexeme processing.