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Updated: May 19, 2026

Comparing the Frequency Effect Between the Lexical Decision and Naming Tasks in Chinese
Published on: April 1, 2016
Phonologically determined asymmetries in vocabulary structure across languages
Anne Cutler1, Takashi Otake, Laurence Bruggeman
1MARCS Institute, University of Western Sydney, Penrith South, New South Wales 2751, Australia. Anne.Cutler@mpi.nl
Abstract:
Studies of spoken-word recognition have revealed that competition from embedded words differs in strength as a function of where in the carrier word the embedded word is found and have further shown embedding patterns to be skewed such that embeddings in initial position in carriers outnumber embeddings in final position. Lexico-statistical analyses show that this skew is highly attenuated in Japanese, a noninflectional language. Comparison of the extent of the asymmetry in the three Germanic languages English, Dutch, and German allows the source to be traced to a combination of suffixal morphology and vowel reduction in unstressed syllables.
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