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Use of derivational morphology during reading
Cognition
|July 1, 1990
Summary
This study found that while good readers use stem morphemes for meaning, both good and poor readers struggle with suffix meaning. This supports models where morphemes organize the lexicon.
Area of Science:
- Psycholinguistics
- Cognitive Science
- Developmental Psychology
Background:
- Models of the lexicon differ on the role of morphemes in word recognition.
- Derivationally suffixed words may influence reading through inhibitive and facilitative effects.
- Understanding morpheme processing is key to explaining reading comprehension.
Purpose of the Study:
- To compare models of the lexicon based on morpheme roles.
- To investigate how derivationally suffixed words affect reading.
- To assess the use of lexical-semantic and syntactic information from morphemes by readers.
Main Methods:
- A reading comprehension task was used.
- Participants included good and poor high-school-age readers.
- Analysis focused on the processing of derivationally suffixed words.
Main Results:
- Readers utilized stem morphemes for sentence meaning.
- Readers often failed to use syntactic information from derivational suffixes.
- Lower-ability readers showed a greater deficit in suffix syntactic information use.
Conclusions:
- Findings support morphologically organized models of the lexicon.
- Stem morphemes are crucial for accessing word meaning.
- Reading ability impacts the use of derivational suffix information.