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Evidence for morphological composition in compound words using MEG

Psycholinguistic and electrophysiological studies of lexical processing show convergent evidence for morpheme-based lexical access for morphologically complex words that involves early decomposition into their constituent morphemes followed by some combinatorial operation. Considering that both sema...

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Autores principales: Brooks, Teon L., Cid de Garcia, Daniela
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4412057/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25972798
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2015.00215
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author Brooks, Teon L.
Cid de Garcia, Daniela
author_facet Brooks, Teon L.
Cid de Garcia, Daniela
author_sort Brooks, Teon L.
collection PubMed
description Psycholinguistic and electrophysiological studies of lexical processing show convergent evidence for morpheme-based lexical access for morphologically complex words that involves early decomposition into their constituent morphemes followed by some combinatorial operation. Considering that both semantically transparent (e.g., sailboat) and semantically opaque (e.g., bootleg) compounds undergo morphological decomposition during the earlier stages of lexical processing, subsequent combinatorial operations should account for the difference in the contribution of the constituent morphemes to the meaning of these different word types. In this study we use magnetoencephalography (MEG) to pinpoint the neural bases of this combinatorial stage in English compound word recognition. MEG data were acquired while participants performed a word naming task in which three word types, transparent compounds (e.g., roadside), opaque compounds (e.g., butterfly), and morphologically simple words (e.g., brothel) were contrasted in a partial-repetition priming paradigm where the word of interest was primed by one of its constituent morphemes. Analysis of onset latency revealed shorter latencies to name compound words than simplex words when primed, further supporting a stage of morphological decomposition in lexical access. An analysis of the associated MEG activity uncovered a region of interest implicated in morphological composition, the Left Anterior Temporal Lobe (LATL). Only transparent compounds showed increased activity in this area from 250 to 470 ms. Previous studies using sentences and phrases have highlighted the role of LATL in performing computations for basic combinatorial operations. Results are in tune with decomposition models for morpheme accessibility early in processing and suggest that semantics play a role in combining the meanings of morphemes when their composition is transparent to the overall word meaning.
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spelling pubmed-44120572015-05-13 Evidence for morphological composition in compound words using MEG Brooks, Teon L. Cid de Garcia, Daniela Front Hum Neurosci Neuroscience Psycholinguistic and electrophysiological studies of lexical processing show convergent evidence for morpheme-based lexical access for morphologically complex words that involves early decomposition into their constituent morphemes followed by some combinatorial operation. Considering that both semantically transparent (e.g., sailboat) and semantically opaque (e.g., bootleg) compounds undergo morphological decomposition during the earlier stages of lexical processing, subsequent combinatorial operations should account for the difference in the contribution of the constituent morphemes to the meaning of these different word types. In this study we use magnetoencephalography (MEG) to pinpoint the neural bases of this combinatorial stage in English compound word recognition. MEG data were acquired while participants performed a word naming task in which three word types, transparent compounds (e.g., roadside), opaque compounds (e.g., butterfly), and morphologically simple words (e.g., brothel) were contrasted in a partial-repetition priming paradigm where the word of interest was primed by one of its constituent morphemes. Analysis of onset latency revealed shorter latencies to name compound words than simplex words when primed, further supporting a stage of morphological decomposition in lexical access. An analysis of the associated MEG activity uncovered a region of interest implicated in morphological composition, the Left Anterior Temporal Lobe (LATL). Only transparent compounds showed increased activity in this area from 250 to 470 ms. Previous studies using sentences and phrases have highlighted the role of LATL in performing computations for basic combinatorial operations. Results are in tune with decomposition models for morpheme accessibility early in processing and suggest that semantics play a role in combining the meanings of morphemes when their composition is transparent to the overall word meaning. Frontiers Media S.A. 2015-04-28 /pmc/articles/PMC4412057/ /pubmed/25972798 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2015.00215 Text en Copyright © 2015 Brooks and Cid de Garcia. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Brooks, Teon L.
Cid de Garcia, Daniela
Evidence for morphological composition in compound words using MEG
title Evidence for morphological composition in compound words using MEG
title_full Evidence for morphological composition in compound words using MEG
title_fullStr Evidence for morphological composition in compound words using MEG
title_full_unstemmed Evidence for morphological composition in compound words using MEG
title_short Evidence for morphological composition in compound words using MEG
title_sort evidence for morphological composition in compound words using meg
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4412057/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25972798
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2015.00215
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