IL LI N 0 I UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA - CHAMPAIGN PRODUCTION NOTE University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign Library Large - scale Digitization Project , 2007 . S S

Knowledge of derivational morphology potentially aids readers in the analysis and acquisition of new vocabulary, in lexical access and in establishing the syntactic structure of sentences. Although a number of studies have investigated the role of derivational morphology in acquiring vocabulary and in the organization of the internal lexicon, none have investigated the syntactic role of derivational morphology in sentence processing. In this work, we report on a study which investigated good and poor high school students' knowledge and use of derivational suffixes in establishing sentence level syntax. The results indicate that knowledge and use of derivational morphology is correlated with reading ability. However, for all readers the use of morphological structure of complex forms is task specific; although high school students possess knowledge of the syntactic properties of derivational suffixes, even above average readers do not appear to utilize such knowledge in a task which requires reading for meaning. The Role in Derivational Suffices in Sentence Comprehension Several studies have investigated how morphologically complex words are stored in memory (Taft, 1979; Stanners, Neisser, Hernon, & Hall, 1979; Kempley & Morton, 1982; Bradley, 1979) and a few have looked at the extent to which knowledge of suffixes is used in learning new words (Condry, 1980; Freyd & Baron, 1982; Wysocki & Jenkins, 1985). However, no studies of derivational morphology have investigated how the syntactic information provided by derivational suffixes, i.e. those that change part of speech, might be used during sentence processing. In this paper, we report on a study which investigates good and poor high school readers' use of derivational suffixes in establishing sentence level syntax. The Role of Derivational Morphology in Written English Over the past 20 years, researchers have noted structural differences between the language used in written and spoken English (Drieman, 1962; Devito, 1966; Harrell, 1957; Kroll, 1977; O'Donnell, 1974). Most recently, Chafe (1980, 1983) compared the language used by 25 adults in their informal dinner conversations, personal letters, academic lectures, and academic writing. He reported that the information load is generally greater in a written English sentence than in a spoken English sentence. Information is packed into written English through a Derivational Suffixes Derivational Suffixes variety of complex structures which occur infrequently in spoken English. Chafe's studies indicate that derivationally complex words occur more often in written English than in spoken English. In fact, Chafe states that the most characteristic "integrative," i.e., information packing, device in written language is nominalization. According to Chafe's data, nominalizations occur almost twelve times as often in written English as in spoken English. Moreover, he found a great absolute increase in the number of attributive adjectives in written English. Chafe summarizes, "While nominalizations show the greatest proportional difference across the two kinds of language (spoken and written), attributive adjectives are the single most prevalent feature of written language" (1980, p. 42). Since nominalizations and adjectives tend to be formed with derivational suffixes, such suffixes are clearly more important in written English than in spoken English In spoken language, information is carried by a rich array of cues many of which are absent in written English. In a faceto-face conversation the speaker bolsters the linguistic message with non-lingustic cues such as facial expression, posture, hand gestures, or shoulder shrugs. Syntactic information about constituent structure is provided in spoken English by prosody cues (Fodor, Bever, & Garrett, 1974). In the reading situation, readers face lan•,uae -hich contains structures different and often more complex than those they encounters in conversation; and at the same time they lose access to prosodic and physical cues useful in establishing both syntax and semantics. Little is known about how readers cope with the absence of oral cues in conjunction with increasing structural complexity. One possibility is that successful readers learn to utilize signals in the written message which are either absent or relatively unimportant in spoken language. One factor contributing to reading difficulty might be the failure to pay attention to cues which are more typically provided in written English than in spoken English. Derivational morphology is one such linguistic structure. Because derivational suffixes overtly mark words for part of speech, they potentially provide additional syntactic clues which might be helpful in sentence processing. Attending to the syntactic clues associated with suffixes could help compensate for the absense of prosody and other oral cues in written English; failure to attend to suffixes could interfere with the reader establishing correct syntactic structures. In reading, then, suffixes which overtly code syntax could potentially take on more importance in establishing syntactic structure than in spoken English. While suffixes appear to be potentially important, helpful markers of syntactic structure for the reader, it is far from evident that high school students, particularly poorer readers, Derivational Suffixes Derivational Suffixes are able to exploit them. Recent research, in fact, suggests that many readers are not. Shaughnessey (1977) reported that many of the underprepared college writers she encountered misused derivational suffixes when they tried to use syntax more complicated than that of normal conversation, as in "She tells the difference changes that the woman have experienced" and "It is protecting familyhood of which I am a strong belief" (p. 75). The interaction between complex syntax and derivational morphology appears to cause trouble for lower ability writers, who are also generally lower ability readers. If these students lack knowledge of the syntactic features associated with the suffixes, they would not be able to exploit the overt coding 'or syntax provided by the suffixes during reading. Thus they would miss certain cues to sentence syntax provided by the language. One factor contributing to their reading difficulty might be incomplete knowledge of derivational suffixes. But how likely is it that college-age speakers have not mastered derivational