Does the language processing system make use of abstract grammatical categories and representations that are not directly visible from the surface form of a linguistic expression? This study examines stem-formation processes and conjugation classes, a case of "pure" morphology that provides insight into the role of grammatical structure in…

Although English verbs can be either regular ("walk"-"walked") or irregular ("sing"-"sang"), "denominal verbs" that are derived from nouns, such as the use of the verb "ring" derived from the noun "a ring", take the regular form even if they are homophonous with an existing irregular verb: "The soldiers ringed the city" rather than "The soldiers…

An eye movement study of temporarily ambiguous closure sentences confirmed that the early closure penalty in a sentence like "While John hunted the frightened deer escaped" is larger for a simple past verb ("hunted") than for a past progressive verb ("was hunting"). The results can be explained by the observation that simple past tense verbs…

Is past tense production better modelled by a Single Mechanism or a Words and Rules model? We present data concerning a phenomenon that has not been considered by either model--regular past tense verbs with contrasting phonotactics. One set of verbs contains clusters at the inflected verb end that also occur in monomorphemic words…