Word-level morphology: A psycholinguistic perspective on linear formation in Hebrew nominals
نویسنده
چکیده
Hebrew is a highly synthetic Semitic language, which is well-known for its non-linear root-and-pattern morphology. The current paper discusses a less familiar facet of Hebrew—linear operations relating stems and suffixes. It argues for their central role in Hebrew processing and acquisition, and proposes a systematic distinction between root-and-pattern and stem-and-suffix structures. The paper takes as its first theoretical departure point the usage—based lexicon-morphology model proposed and explicated by Bybee (1988, in press) whereby all lexical items are stored in memory and are related by highly reinforced representational patterns. According to this view, the organization of the mental lexicon emerges out of the repeated co-occurrence of morphemes and their consistent mapping onto specific meanings. Thus, morphology both expresses relationships among words and underlies their formation. A second theoretical foundation concerns the impact of typological features on language development and processing. Recent cross-linguistic research has demonstrated the powerful impact of target-language typology on the process of acquisition from early preschool age in a range of domains, revealing that from very early on children are sensitive to the ‘typological imperatives’ of their language. That is, even very young children recognize ‘where the action is at’, so to speak, in the input language (Berman, 1986). Recently, Slobin (2001: 441–442) has developed the idea of typological bootstrapping in language acquisition, showing how competing forces in the history of each language brings about its particular typological character. Children exposed to input from a specific language develop in the natural course of language acquisition what Slobin calls ‘explanatory systems’ of their language system, which direct children inexorably towards
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