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Derivational morphological processes allow us to create new words (e.g. punish (V) to noun (N) punishment) from base forms. The number of steps from the basic units to derived words often varies (e.g., nationalitybridge-V) i.e., zero-derivation (Aronoff, 1980). We compared the processing of one-step (soaking

The precise structure of speech sound representations is still a matter of debate. In the present neurobiological study, we compared predictions about differential sensitivity to speech contrasts between models that assume full specification of all phonological information in the mental lexicon with those assuming sparse representations (only contrastive or otherwise not predictable information is stored). In a passive oddball paradigm, we studied the contrast sensitivity as reflected in the mismatch negativity (MMN) response to changes in the manner of articulation, as well as place of articulation of consonants in intervocalic positions of nonwords (manner of articulation: [edi ~ eni], [ezi ~ eni]; place of articulation: [edi ~ egi]). Models that assume full specification of all phonological information in the mental lexicon posit equal MMNs within each contrast (symmetric MMNs), that is, changes from standard [edi] to deviant [eni] elicit a similar MMN response as changes from standard [eni] to deviant [edi]. In contrast, models that assume sparse representations predict that only the [ezi] ~ [eni] reversals will evoke symmetric MMNs because of their conflicting fully specified manner features. Asymmetric MMNs are predicted, however, for the reversals of [edi] ~ [eni] and [edi] ~ [egi] because either a manner or place property in each pair is not fully specified in the mental lexicon. Our results show a pattern of symmetric and asymmetric MMNs that is in line with predictions of the featurally underspecified lexicon model that assumes sparse phonological representations. We conclude that the brain refers to underspecified phonological representations during speech perception., ((PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved).)

This study examines the role of abstractness during the activation of a lexical representation. Abstractness and conflict are directly modeled in our approach by invoking lexical representations in terms of contrastive phonological features. In two priming experiments with English nouns differing only in vowel height of their stem vowels (e.g.,pin vs. pan), we compare a conflict versus non-conflict situation across English dialects. Based on differences in the vowel height representation, the conflict occurs in American English, but not in New Zealand English. The results show that there is a lack of priming in the conflict, but not in the non-conflict situation. This is taken as evidence for the claim that lexical access is sensitive to conflicts and non-conflicts between acoustic-phonetic and phonological information. We therefore conclude that discrete phonological features are crucial determiners for successful speech perception, which is in line with abstractionist approaches.

Within linguistics, words with a complex internal structure are commonly assumed to be decomposed into their constituent morphemes (e.g., un-help-ful). Nevertheless, an ongoing debate concerns the brain structures that subserve this process. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, the present study varied the internal complexity of derived words while keeping the external surface structure constant as well as controlling relevant parameters that could affect word recognition. This allowed us to tease apart brain activations specifically related to morphological processing from those related to possible confounds of perceptual cues like word length or affix type. Increased task-related activity in left inferior frontal, bilateral temporo-occipital and right parietal areas was specifically related to the processing of derivations with high complex internal structure relative to those with low complex internal structure. Our results show, that morphologically complex words are decomposed and that the brain processes the degree of internal complexity of word derivations.

How does the mental lexicon cope with phonetic variants in recognition of spoken words? Using a lexical decision task with and without fragment priming, the authors compared the processing of German words and pseudowords that differed only in the place of articulation of the initial consonant (place). Across both experiments, event-related brain potentials indicated that pseudowords with initial noncoronal place (e.g., *Brachen) activate words with initial coronal place (e.g., Drachen [dragon]). In contrast, coronal pseudowords (e.g., *Drenze) do not as effectively activate noncoronal words (e.g., Grenze [border]). Thus, certain word onset variations do not hamper the speech recognition system. The authors interpret this asymmetry as a consequence of underspecified coronal place of articulation in the mental lexicon.

A central issue in speech recognition is how contrastive phonemic information is stored in the mental lexicon. The conventional view assumes that this information is closely related to acoustic properties of speech. Considering that no world is ever pronounced alike twice and that the brain has limited capacities to manage information, an opposing view proposes abstract underspecified representations where not all phonemic features are stored. We examined this propos.al using event-related brain potentials, in particular mismatch negativity (MMN), an automatic change detection response in the brain that is sensitive to language-specific phoneme representations. In the current study, vowel pairs were presented to subjects, reversed as standard and deviant. Models not assuming underspecification predict equal MMNsfor vowel pairs regardless of the reversal. In contrast, enhanced and earlier MMNs were observed for those conditions where the standard is not phonologically underspecified in the mental representation. This provides the first neuro-biological evidence for a featurally underspecified mental lexicon.