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ERIC Number: EJ1347746
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2022-Sep
Pages: 16
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0272-2631
EISSN: EISSN-1470-1545
The Impact of Orthography on Lexical Access: The Case of Capitalization and Word Category Information in L1 and L2 German
Opitz, Andreas; Bordag, Denisa
Studies in Second Language Acquisition, v44 n4 p1194-1209 Sep 2022
Previous research has shown that orthographic marking may have a function beyond identifying orthographic word forms. In two visual priming experiments with native speakers and advanced learners of German (Czech natives) we tested the hypothesis that orthography can convey word-class cues comparable to morphological marking. We examined the effect of initial letter capitalization of nouns (a specific property of German orthography) on the processing of five homonymous and grammatically ambiguous forms. Both populations showed the same pattern of results: deverbal nouns (conversions) patterned together with countable nouns while in a previous study (with eliminated orthographic word-class cues) they patterned together with infinitives. Together, findings suggest that orthographic cues can trigger word-class-specific lexical retrieval/access. They also suggest a lexical entry structure in which conversion nouns, infinitives, and inflected verbal forms share a category-neutral parent node and that specified subnodes are accessed only when specifying cues are available and/or necessary for processing.
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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