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ERIC Number: EJ906917
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2010
Pages: 31
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0169-0965
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
The Role of Morpho-Phonological Factors in Subject-Predicate Gender Agreement in Hebrew
Dank, Maya; Deutsch, Avital
Language and Cognitive Processes, v25 n10 p1380-1410 2010
The present study investigated the role of overt phonological realisation of morphological marking on the implementation of subject-predicate agreement in language production. This study was conducted in Hebrew, and focused on subject-predicate gender agreement for inanimate nouns. In Hebrew, singular masculine forms are usually morphologically unmarked, whereas singular feminine forms are morphologically marked. Although the system is generally consistent, it includes examples of feminine forms which are not marked with feminine suffixes, i.e., unmarked feminine forms. Likewise, there are particular suffixes that usually denote masculine or feminine plurals. However, there are examples of masculine plurals which are inflected irregularly, with a feminine suffix. We took advantage of these characteristics of Hebrew to manipulate morphological factors in the process of agreement production. Using a sentence-completion task for complex noun phrases, we tested the effect of the absence of overt gender marking (Exp. 1) and misleading gender marking (Exp. 2) of the local noun on the frequency of agreement errors. The results revealed that whereas the absence of overt gender marking did not affect the frequency of agreement errors, overt misleading gender marking did affect it. The results are discussed in relation to the distinction between inflectional and derivational structures and their relevance to the process of computing agreement in the Marking and Morphing model (Eberhard, Cutting, & Bock, 2005). (Contains 5 tables and 13 footnotes.)
Psychology Press. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 325 Chestnut Street Suite 800, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Fax: 215-625-2940; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A