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Morphological processing in a second language: behavioral and event-related brain potential evidence for storage and
Anja Hahne1, Jutta L Mueller, Harald Clahsen
1Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany. hahne@cbs.mpg.de
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
|January 19, 2006
Summary
Second-language learners process German inflections like native speakers, showing similar brain responses for participial forms but distinct patterns for plural formation, suggesting dual processing routes are utilized.
Area of Science:
- Psycholinguistics
- Second Language Acquisition
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Understanding how second-language (L2) learners process grammatical structures is crucial for L2 pedagogy.
- Inflectional morphology, particularly in languages like German, presents complex challenges for L2 learners.
- Dual-mechanism models propose separate processing routes for regular and irregular inflections.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the processing of German participial inflection and noun plurals in L2 learners.
- To compare L2 learners' processing of German inflections with native speaker patterns.
- To determine if L2 learners utilize distinct processing routes for regular and irregular inflections.
Main Methods:
- Two behavioral experiments (nonce-word elicitation, plural judgment task) and two event-related brain potential (ERP) experiments were conducted.
- Participants were L2 learners of German with Russian as their native language.
- Behavioral data and ERPs (anterior negativity, P600, N400) were analyzed.
Main Results:
- L2 learners generalized the German participial -t suffixation rule and showed native-like ERPs (anterior negativity, P600).
- For plural formation, L2 learners exhibited different preferences for regular and irregular forms.
- Overapplication of regular plurals elicited a P600, while irregulars elicited an N400; L2 learners lacked anterior negativity for regular plural overapplications, unlike native speakers.
Conclusions:
- Clear dissociations exist in L2 learners' processing of regular and irregular German inflections.
- L2 learners appear to employ both lexical storage and morphological decomposition routes, consistent with dual-mechanism models.
- While L2 processing largely mirrors native patterns, subtle differences emerge, particularly in early processing stages of regular inflection.
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