Time course of the neural processing of spoken derived words: an event-related potential study

Event-related potentials were recorded to examine the time course of the neural processing of spoken (i) existing derived words, (ii) morphologically legal, and (iii) illegal pseudowords in the Finnish language. The stimuli were matched by (complex) uniqueness/deviation points and event-related potentials were time-locked to stimulus onset and suffix onset. Illegal pseudowords elicited a larger negativity than existing words approximately 300 ms after suffix onset, suggesting a difficulty to semantically integrate morphemes. The magnitude of the negativity effect was similar for legal pseudowords and existing words, reflecting successful licensing and integration of morphemes for legal pseudowords. The results suggest parallel full-form and morpheme-based processing of spoken derived stimuli and emphasize the role of semantic interpretability in morphological parsing.