University of Alberta The Interaction of Suffixation with Synonymy and Antonymy Laura L. Sabourin 0 A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science Psycholinguistics Department of Linguistics Edmonton, Alberta Fall, 1998 National Library Bibliothèque nationale l*l ofCanada du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Services senrices bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395. rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1AW OttawaON K1AW canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sell reproduire, prêter, distriilmer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la fome de microfiche/nlm, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur consenre la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fkom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otheMnse de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. Abstract This thesis reports on two psycholinguistic experiments that explore the question of how synonyms and antonyrns are linked in the Mental Lexicon. The experirnental results confirm theoretical expectations that synonymic and antonymic links are fundamental cognitive relations among lexical items. The results also suggest that the nature of these relations may not be identical because it was found that synonymic and antonymic pairs behaved differently in the two experirnental paradigms and that they also showed differences in the way they interacted when suffixation was added as a factor. The relevance of these findings to methodological issues in psycholinguistic experimentation is discussed and the implications for further research are outlined. Table of Contents 2. SEMANnCS. PSYCHOLINGUISTICS. AND SUFFIXATION ...........................7 2.1 INTRODUCTI~N .............................................................................................................. -7 2.2 S~CRELATIONS................................................................................................... 8 2.2.1 Synonymy ............................................................................................................ -9 2.2.2 Antonymy ......................................................................................................... 11 2.2.3 Psycholinguistics and Semnn tic Relations .................................................. 13 2.3 THEROLE OF SU~XATION.............................. ... ..................................................... 18 2.4 SUMMARY..................................................................................................................... 21 3. DEVELOPMENT OF MATERIALS ...................................... 3.1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................ -22 3.2 SELECTIONCRITERIA .................................................................................................... 23 3.3 SYNONYMAND ANTONYMRATING TGÇK .................................................................... î5 3.3.7 Participants ......................................................................................................... 26 3.3.2 Materials ........................................................................................................... ..-76 3.3.3 Procedzue ............................................................................................................ 26 3.3.4 Results ............................................................................................................... 27 3.3.5 Discussion ................. .. ...................................................................................29 3.4 FINALSTIMULUS LIST .......................... .. ..................................... 30 4 EXPERIMENT 1: RELATEDNESS JUDGMENT TASK ..................................... 33 4.1 INTRODUC~ION......... ....... ............................................................................................. 33 4.2 METHOD....................................................................................................................... 36 4.2.1 Participants ......................................................................................................... 36 4.2.2 Materials ............................................................................................................ -36 4.2.3 Procediire ............................................................................................................ 37 4.3 RESULTS..................................................................................................................... 39 4.4 DISCUSSION.................................................................................................................. -45 5. EXPERIMENT 2: SEMANTIC PRIMING TASK ................................................. 51 5.1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 51 5.2 ~OD............................ .,. ..................................................................................... 55 5.2.1 Participants ..................... .. ............................................................................. .55 5.2.2 Materials .......................................................................................................... 55 5.2.3 Procedure ......................................................................................................... 56 5.3 REsu~rç.................... .. ............................................................................................ 58 5.3.1 Main Effects ........................................................................................................ 59 5.3.2 In teraction Effects .............................................................................................. 61 5.4 DISCUSSION.................................................................................................................. -65 6. CONCLUDING REMARKS .....*................*.***.*........................................................69 6.1 THEON-LINE EXPERIMLWS COMPARED ....................... ... ....................................... -69 6.2 FmWORK ............................................................................................................. -73 6.2.1 The Use of Non-Neufral AfFxation ............................................................. 73 6.2.2 A Cornparison of Synonymic and Antonymic Subcategories ................ 74 6.2.3 Priming Pnradigm using Narning Latency .................................................. 75 6.2.4 Paired Priming ................................................................................................... 76 6.3 SUMMARY..................................................................................................................... 76 REFERENCES ...................................... ........................................................................... 78 APPENDIX A: INITIAL STIMULUS LIST USED FOR THE RATING TASK .. 81 APPENDIX B: ASSOCIATION PAIR RATINGS.................................................. ..83 APPENDIX C: SYNONYM RATINGS ...................................................................... 84 APPENDIX D: RATlNGS FOR ANTONYMS......................................................... 85 List of Tables TABLE3-1: THEBRWU(DOWN OF MORPHOLOGICAL COMPLEXITY FOR EACH STLWLUS PAIR IN BOTH m SYNONYMICAND AN~ONYMICRELATIONS ......................................... ...23 TABLE3-2: STIMULUSEXAMPLES FOR EACH CATEGORY OF SEMTIC RELATEDNESS AND ÇUFFIXA~ION................................ ... ........................................................................ -24 TABLE3-3: AVERAGESCORE FOR EACH CATEGORY (ALL DATA) IN THE RATING TASK. RATINGS RANGED FROM 1(WORST) TO 5 (BEÇT)......................................................... 27 TABLE3-41 AVERAGERATINGS IN EACH OF THE SIX CATEGORIES OF MORPHOLOGICAL COMPLEXITY AFER EXCLUSION OF THE TWO WORST SYNONYMS AND THE TWO BEST MOM. ................................................................................................................-29 TABLE3-5: FWAL!XIMULUS PAIRS FOR BOTH SEMAiWC RELATIONS ACROSS EACH LEVEL OF MORPHOLOGICAL COMPLEMTY. ......... ..... ........................................................ ..32 TABLE4-1: SUMMARY OF THE NUMBERS OF PAIRS FOR EACH TYPE OF RELATION INCLUDED ÜV THE EXPERIMENT AND THEIR CORRECT RESPONSE. .................................................. -37 TABLE42: MW RESPONSE TI- (AND ÇTPUUDARDDEVIATION) IN MILLISECONDS FOR EACH SEMAANTIC RELATIONSHIP AVERAGED OVER LEVEL OF .MORPHOLOGICAL COMPLEXI'~~......................... ... .............................................................................. -40 TABLE4-3: MEANRESPONSE mm (AND STANDARD DEVIATIONS) IN MILLISECONDS FOR EACH LEVEL OF SUFFIXATION, AVERAGING OVER LEVELS OF SEMANTIC RELATION. ....41 TABLE4-4: MEANRESPONSE MES AND STANDARD DEVIATION (PRESE~EDIN BRACKETS) FOR EACH LEVEL OF THE INTERACTION OF SEMANTIC RELATIONSHIP ;V\ID SL'FFU(ATION.~~ TABLE4-5: THESTIMULUS