Morphological Complexity in English Prefixed Words: An Experimental Investigation by Alissa Melinger A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of State University of New York at Buffalo In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Linguistics Acknowledgments .....................................................................................................................vi Abstract ...................................................................................................................................viii Chapter 1 ....................................................................................................................................1 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................1 1.1 The Morpheme..............................................................................................................3 1.2 Definitions....................................................................................................................4 1.3 Morphological Theories..............................................................................................13 1.4 Psychological Models.................................................................................................21 1.5 Goals and Focus .........................................................................................................25 1.5.1 Why prefixes .......................................................................................................26 1.5.2 Free stem words in English..................................................................................27 1.5.3 Bound root words in English................................................................................28 1.5.4 The role of form and meaning..............................................................................29 1.6 Organization...............................................................................................................30 Chapter 2 ..................................................................................................................................32 EXPERIMENTAL BACKGROUND....................................................................................32 2.1 Early Evidence for Morphemes ...................................................................................33 2.2 The Role of Semantic Overlap....................................................................................37 2.3 The Role of Phonological Overlap..............................................................................42 2.4 The Representations of Affixes...................................................................................44 2.5 Evidence for Morpheme Boundaries...........................................................................47 2.6 Morphemes as an Organizing Principle in the Lexicon ...............................................51 Chapter 3 ..................................................................................................................................53 EXPERIMENTAL METHODOLOGY.................................................................................53 3.1 Criteria for Morphological Classifications ..................................................................55 3.1.1 Distinguishing complex words from simple words...............................................55 3.1.2 Distinguishing bound root words from free stem words. ......................................57 3.2 The Segment Shifting Task.........................................................................................60 3.2.1 The locus of the effect .........................................................................................62 3.2.2 Evidence from English suffixes ...........................................................................66 3.3 Experiment 1..............................................................................................................68 3.3.1 Method .................................................................................................................68 3.3.2 Results.................................................................................................................70 3.3.3 Discussion ...........................................................................................................71 3.4 Segment Shifting and Prefixes.....................................................................................72 Chapter 4 ..................................................................................................................................74 BOUND ROOTS AND FREE STEMS .................................................................................74 4.1 Experiment 2: Prefix Shifting ......................................................................................74 4.1.1 Method ................................................................................................................75 4.1.2 Results.................................................................................................................79 4.1.2.1 Performance on the memory task ...............................................................81 4.1.3 Discussion ...........................................................................................................82 4.1.3.1 Why the free stem condition was faster than the simple condition. .................83 4.1.3.2 Phonological mismatch between conditions ..................................................84 4.1.3.3 The bound root condition’s behavior.............................................................86 4.1.3.4 Types of bound root words............................................................................87 4.2 Subanalyses of the Bound Root Words .......................................................................87 4.2.1 Post hoc analysis 1: Phonological alternations .....................................................88 ii 4.3 Semantics of the Prefix...............................................................................................92 4.3.1 Semantic rating study 1........................................................................................92 4.3.1.1 Method ..........................................................................................................93 4.3.1.2 Results...........................................................................................................94 4.3.2 Post Hoc analysis 2: Semantic transparency.........................................................94 4.3.3 Results.................................................................................................................95 Chapter 5 ..................................................................................................................................98 THE ROLE OF FORM .........................................................................................................98 5.1 Experiment 3: Phonological Alternations....................................................................99 5.1.1 Method ...............................................................................................................100 5.1.2 Results...............................................................................................................102 5.1.3 Discussion .........................................................................................................105 5.1.3.1 Investigating other contributing factors .......................................................106 5.1.3.2 Summary ....................................................................................................107 Chapter 6 ................................................................................................................................109 THE ROLE OF MEANING................................................................................................109 6.1 Semantic Rating Study 2 ..........................................................................................109 6.1.1 Method ...............................................................................................................109 6.1.2 Results................................................................................................................111 6.2 Experiment 4............................................................................................................112 6.2.1 Method ..............................................................................................................113 6.2.2 Results...............................................................................................................114 6.2.3 Discussion .........................................................................................................116 6.2.3.1 Free stem words with opaque prefixes.........................................................116 iii 6.3 Experiment 5............................................................................................................118 6.3.1 Method ..............................................................................................................120 6.3.2 Results...............................................................................................................121 6.3.3 Discussion ..........................................................................................................123