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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 6, 2026

Experimental Paradigm for Measuring the Effect of Induced Emotion on Grammar Learning

Experimental Paradigm for Measuring the Effect of Induced Emotion on Grammar Learning

Published on: January 29, 2020

Lexical Semantics and Irregular Inflection.

Yi Ting Huang¹, Steven Pinker

¹The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Language and Cognitive Processes

|December 15, 2010

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Irregular word inflections are influenced by factors beyond sound, including lexical, morphological, and aspectual properties. These findings support theories of language that differentiate regular and irregular verb storage.

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Last Updated: Jun 6, 2026

Experimental Paradigm for Measuring the Effect of Induced Emotion on Grammar Learning

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Lexical Decision Task for Studying Written Word Recognition in Adults with and without Dementia or Mild Cognitive Impairment

Published on: June 25, 2019

Area of Science:

Psycholinguistics
Linguistics
Cognitive Science

Background:

Theories of morphology, including connectionist and symbolic models, debate the nonphonological factors influencing irregular word inflections.
Irregular inflections are not solely determined by sound, as exemplified by 'lie-lay' (recline) versus 'lie-lied' (prevaricate).

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate nonphonological factors affecting irregular word inflections.
To test the roles of lexical, semantic, morphological structure, and compositionality effects in irregular verb formation.

Main Methods:

Four experiments were conducted involving existing and novel verbs.
Participants rated past-tense forms, semantic similarities, grammatical structure, and aspectual similarities.

Main Results:

An interaction between semantic and phonological similarity implicated lexical effects.
Morphological structure and aspectual compositionality showed robust effects.
Semantic similarity effects were weak and inconsistent.

Conclusions:

Results support language theories incorporating lexical entries and morphological structure.
Findings suggest distinct storage mechanisms for regular and irregular verbs.
Psycholinguistic processes appear to shape vocabulary structure historically.