Literacy-related differences in morphological knowledge: A nonce-word study.

Area of Science:

• Linguistics
• Cognitive Science
• Developmental Psychology

Background:

• Native language grammar is typically acquired early in development.
• Research often assumes grammatical convergence among all native speakers.
• The role of literacy in shaping adult native speaker grammar is under-explored.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the morphosyntactic productivity in adult native Spanish speakers with varying literacy levels.
• To determine if literacy acquisition influences grammatical knowledge beyond early development.
• To challenge the assumption of universal grammatical convergence in native speakers.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a nonce-word inflection task to assess morphosyntactic productivity.
• Compared three groups: high-literates (controls), late-literates, and semi-literates.
• Analyzed performance across different grammatical features (person, number, conjugation).

Main Results:

• High-literates outperformed late-literates, who in turn outperformed semi-literates.
• Group differences were more pronounced for less frequent grammatical forms.
• Significant individual differences in inflectional productivity were observed across all groups.

Conclusions:

• Literacy acquisition, even in adulthood, appears to enhance morphosyntactic productivity in native Spanish speakers.
• Written representations may play a crucial role in acquiring specific grammatical aspects.
• Grammatical knowledge in native speakers is not necessarily uniform and can be influenced by literacy experiences.