Processing morphologically complex words in native and non-native French By Copyright 2016 Caitlin E. Coughlin Submitted to the graduate degree program in Linguistics and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ________________________________ Chairperson Dr. Robert Fiorentino ________________________________ Dr. Allard Jongman ________________________________ Dr. Joan Sereno ________________________________ Dr. Kimberly Swanson ________________________________ Dr. Harold Torrence Date Defended: 6/16/2016 The Dissertation Committee for Caitlin E. Coughlin certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Processing morphologically complex words in native and non-native French ________________________________ Chairperson Dr. Robert Fiorentino Date Approved: 7/21/2016 ii Abstract This dissertation investigates how individuals who learned French after childhood process inflected French verbs. Two experiments test the hypothesis that non-native speakers lack the grammatical representation responsible for processing inflection in the manner that native speakers are able to. Experiment 1 uses a masked priming lexical decision task to test if native and non-native French speakers are able to decompose inflected words into stem and affix, and access a morphological level of representation in the lexicon. Experiment 2 uses the same task as Experiment 1, but incorporates electroencephalography (EEG) to investigate the time-course of lexical access in native and non-native French speakers. The results of both Experiment 1 and 2 indicate that non-native French speakers process inflectional information in a qualitatively similar way as native speakers. Additionally, the ability to process inflection in a native-like way is not restricted to learners at higher levels of proficiency; morphological processing is found across a wide range of proficiency levels. The results of the two experiments suggest that the grammatical representations and brain mechanisms responsible for processing inflection are available to adult second language learners, and may be available even in the early stages of acquisition. iii Acknowledgements There are a number of people to whom I would like to express my sincere gratitude. First and foremost, I am tremendously grateful for the support and encouragement from my advisor, Rob Fiorentino. He has shown me what excellence in research looks like, and inspires me to always do my best work. His dedication to my growth as a researcher is something I will never forget, and always appreciate. I am also grateful for my committee members Joan Sereno, Allard Jongman, Harold Torrence, and Kimberly Swanson. Their helpful comments and thoughtful discussions about my research helped expand my understanding of how my work fits into the much larger question of how language exists in the brain, and why my work is exciting. I am thankful for their dedication to helping me do the best work I can do. There are a number of other faculty I would like to thank. Alison Gabriele spent countless hours reading my papers in her SLA classes, offering constructive comments to help improve my writing, and listening to me give practice talks. I am grateful for her time and her dedication. I would also like to thank Utako Minai who spent a lot of time helping me improve my presentations and helping me see how my work fits into the larger processing literature. I am grateful for the help and support of my international collaborators. Elsa Spinelli (Université Pierre Mendès-France) generously helped me collect native French speaker data in France for Experiment 1. Phaedra Royle (Université de Montréal) and Karsten Steinhauer (McGill University) were incredibly generous with their time and lab space in Montreal. Without their assistance, Experiment 2 would not have been possible. iv I would like to thank my fellow graduate students and friends in the department who supported me during my doctoral program, in particular Lauren Covey and Katrina Connell. Our games of pub trivia helped keep me sane, even though we never scored many points. I am also thankful to graduate students Lauren Fromt and Steffi Nickels in Montreal who helped me recruit and run participants, and taught me new techniques for analyzing EEG data. I am thankful for the hospitality and friendship of Sophong Tran during my visits to Montreal. I am grateful for the love and support of my family during my many, many years of school. I am grateful for the financial support I received from the Department of Linguistics and Graduate Studies. Without the funding for travel and participant payment, and without a semester on fellowship, I would not have been able to travel to Montreal for Experiment 2. Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Annie Tremblay, who shows me love, support, and patience every day. v Table of Contents Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................ iv Chapter 1: Processing Morphologically Complex Words .............................................................. 1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 1 Overview of models of lexical processing .................................................................................. 1 Morphological models of lexical access ..................................................................................... 3 Single-mechanism morphological models .................................................................................. 5 Dual-mechanism morphological models ..................................................................................... 8 Non-morphological models of lexical access............................................................................ 13 The masked priming method ..................................................................................................... 16 Inflectional difficulties in a non-native language ...................................................................... 18 Aim of this dissertation ............................................................................................................. 31 Chapter 2: Experiment 1 ............................................................................................................... 34 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 34 Non-native-like processing of inflection in an L2: Evidence from priming ............................. 35 Native-like processing of inflection in a second language ........................................................ 43 Experiment 1: masked-priming lexical decision ....................................................................... 51 Participants ............................................................................................................................ 51 Non-native French proficiency measures .............................................................................. 53 Procedure ............................................................................................................................... 54 Stimuli ................................................................................................................................... 55 Analysis & Results ................................................................................................................ 58 Discussion .............................................................................................................................. 76 Chapter 3: Experiment 2 ............................................................................................................... 82 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 82 Event-Related Potentials ........................................................................................................... 82 ERP responses from morphological processing ........................................................................ 84 Experiment 2 ............................................................................................................................. 89 Participants ............................................................................................................................ 92 Procedure ............................................................................................................................... 94 Stimuli ................................................................................................................................... 95 EEG Recording and analysis ................................................................................................. 98 vi Results: Accuracy and reaction times .................................................................................... 99 EEG Results ......................................................................................................................... 107 Discussion ...........................................................................................................................