The Role of Aspect During Deverbal Word Processing in Greek

Area of Science:

• Psycholinguistics
• Morphology
• Linguistics

Background:

• Deverbal formations are morphologically complex.
• Previous studies show lexical category and argument structure impact processing of Greek and English deverbal pseudowords.
• Slovenian research highlighted the role of verb aspect in deverbal word processing.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the role of aspect in the morphological processing of Greek deverbal word formations.
• To examine how aspectual properties of base verbs affect the processing of deverbal pseudowords in Greek.

Main Methods:

• Conducted an offline acceptability judgment task.
• Performed an online lexical decision task.
• Utilized pseudowords that violate Greek derivational rules.

Main Results:

• Verb aspect significantly affects the processing of deverbal pseudowords in Greek.
• Aspectual rules have a distinct role compared to categorial and argument structure rules for specific suffixes.
• This effect was observed for suffixes creating unambiguous, eventive readings with clear event implications.

Conclusions:

• Aspect plays a crucial role in the morphological processing of deverbal formations in Greek.
• The influence of aspect is suffix-dependent, particularly for eventive readings.
• This study extends understanding of aspect's role in deverbal word processing.