Chinese as a natural experiment
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James Myers
Abstract
The Chinese lexicon is characterized by its typologically unique one-to-one-to-one mapping of morphemes, syllables, and orthographic characters. This architecture poses practical difficulties for the psycholinguist wanting to study lexical processing in Chinese. More seriously, seen as a natural experiment, Chinese challenges assumptions that processing models traditionally make about the roles of phonemes, morphemes, lemmas, and words in lexical access. It is argued that cross-linguistic variation in lexical processing cannot be accommodated by simply modifying lexical processing models, but instead what is needed is a universal learning model. Suggestions are given for how such a model could be tested empirically by extending methods already used for testing language-specific lexical processing.
Abstract
The Chinese lexicon is characterized by its typologically unique one-to-one-to-one mapping of morphemes, syllables, and orthographic characters. This architecture poses practical difficulties for the psycholinguist wanting to study lexical processing in Chinese. More seriously, seen as a natural experiment, Chinese challenges assumptions that processing models traditionally make about the roles of phonemes, morphemes, lemmas, and words in lexical access. It is argued that cross-linguistic variation in lexical processing cannot be accommodated by simply modifying lexical processing models, but instead what is needed is a universal learning model. Suggestions are given for how such a model could be tested empirically by extending methods already used for testing language-specific lexical processing.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface vii
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Introduction
- The challenge of embracing complexity 1
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Articles
- Measures of phonological typicality 13
- Assessing language impairment in aphasia 33
- Behavioral profiles 57
- Using a maze task to track lexical and sentence processing 81
- Stimulus norming 93
- Connectionism and the role of morphology in visual word recognition 105
- Towards a localist–connectionist model of word translation 135
- Chinese as a natural experiment 155
- Demythologizing the word frequency effect 171
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Articles
- Lexical knowledge without a lexicon? 197
- Detecting inherent bias in lexical decision experiments with the LD1NN algorithm 231
- A technical introduction to using speakers’ eye movements to study language 249
- Eye movements and morphological processing in reading 279
- Spelling strategies in alphabetic scripts 307
- The EEG/ERP technologies in linguistic research 337
- Formulaic sequences 369
- Fractal and recurrence analysis of psycholinguistic data 395
- Brain imaging and conceptions of the lexicon 431
- Index 459
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface vii
-
Introduction
- The challenge of embracing complexity 1
-
Articles
- Measures of phonological typicality 13
- Assessing language impairment in aphasia 33
- Behavioral profiles 57
- Using a maze task to track lexical and sentence processing 81
- Stimulus norming 93
- Connectionism and the role of morphology in visual word recognition 105
- Towards a localist–connectionist model of word translation 135
- Chinese as a natural experiment 155
- Demythologizing the word frequency effect 171
-
Articles
- Lexical knowledge without a lexicon? 197
- Detecting inherent bias in lexical decision experiments with the LD1NN algorithm 231
- A technical introduction to using speakers’ eye movements to study language 249
- Eye movements and morphological processing in reading 279
- Spelling strategies in alphabetic scripts 307
- The EEG/ERP technologies in linguistic research 337
- Formulaic sequences 369
- Fractal and recurrence analysis of psycholinguistic data 395
- Brain imaging and conceptions of the lexicon 431
- Index 459
