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Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: This paper investigates whether sustained immersion in a dominant second-language (L2) environment alters morphological processing strategies compared to those of L1-immersed speakers. Furthermore, we assess the methodological usefulness of a language-mode task in light of the validity of conducting native processing research on L2-immersed speakers. Design/methodology/approach: We use the design and stimuli of a previous long-lag visual lexical decision task conducted with native German speakers in Germany and use this group as a control. Thirty-two native German speakers resident in the UK (>2 years; minimal day-to-day German use) participated in two experimental sessions (one containing a 20-minute conversation task in German). Data and analysis: The data shows clear differences between facilitation patterns of L1 and L2-immersed participants. L2-immersed speakers display decreased sensitivity to subtle morphological differences as well as facilitation in a form condition similar to effects seen in L2 processing. Lexical decisions of pseudowords based on plausibility, however, remain similar. While the pre-experiment language-mode task resulted in overall faster responses, there was no effect on processing patterns. Findings/conclusions: L1 morphological processing is affected by continued exposure to a dominant second language with sensitivity to the internal structure or differences of morphologically complex items decreasing. The attrition group shows certain similarities to L2 morphological processing. Our findings also call for caution in the recruitment of L2-immersed experiment participants. Originality: Research on morphological processing in language attrition is scarce and no previous work has examined complex derived words. The addition of a principled manipulation of the pre-experiment task is also uncommon. Significance/implications: The possible similarity of L1-attrition and L2-learner processing challenges the concept of ‘native’ processing and the notion of ‘nativeness’ as a stable property. Further comparison of these populations may lead to a more thorough understanding of the adaptability of our processing system.

Korean can be transcribed in two different scripts, one alphabetic (Hangul) and one logographic (Hanja). How does the mental lexicon represent the contributions of multiple scripts? Hangul’s highly transparent one-to-one relationship between spellings and sounds creates homophones in spoken Korean that are also homographs in Hangul, which can only be disambiguated through Hanja. We thus tested whether native speakers encoded the semantic contributions of the different Hanja characters sharing the same homographic form in Hangul in their mental representation of Sino-Korean. Is processing modulated by the number of available meanings, that is, the size of the semantic cohort? In two cross-modal lexical decision tasks with semantic priming,participants were presented with auditory primes that were either syllables (Experiment 1) or full Sino-Korean words (Experiment 2), followed by visual Sino-Korean full word targets. In Experiment 1, reaction times were not significantly modulated by the size of the semantic cohort. However, in Experiment 2, we observed significantly faster reaction times for targets preceded by primes with larger semantic cohorts. We discuss these findings in relation to the structure of the mental lexicon for bi-scriptal languages and the representation of semantic cohorts across different scripts. 1. Introduction 2. Hanja and Hangul during processing 3. Experiment 1: Cross-modal fragment priming 3.1. Method 3.1.1. Participants 3.1.2. Materials and design 3.1.3. Procedure 3.2. Results 3.3. Discussion 4. Experiment 2: Cross-modal full word priming 4.1. Method 4.1.1. Participants 4.1.2. Materials and design 4.1.3. Procedure 4.2. Results 4.3. Discussion 5. General discussion 6. Conclusions

This paper discusses methodological issues related to the implementation of experimental studies that investigate the processing of literal and metaphorical expressions. The first and central aim of the paper is to discuss methodological questions arising from current experimental research on figurative language, such as use of heterogeneous stimuli and their suitability for investigating research questions related to the processing of figurative language. At the center of the methodological discussion is the contextual and cognitive dominance of literal and metaphorical meanings in polysemous words as an important variable in experimental research on figurative language. In this paper, we discuss its importance and propose a possible way of controlling for this variable. The second aim of this paper is to present experimental results that complement the methodological discussion and show that metaphor processing in polysemous words (i.e. very conventionalized figurative meanings) is not necessarily more difficult or special in comparison to processing of literal language if the stimuli are properly balanced. In this paper, we suggest a way to design stimuli that are balanced both in terms of traditional lexical measures as well as dominance of the literal and metaphorical meanings retrieved from corpus data.

Swedish makes use of tonal accents (Accents 1 and 2) to contrast words, but the functional load is very low, with some regional dialects not even exhibiting the contrast. In particular given the low number of minimal pairs, the question is whether tonal word accent is used in lexical access. Here we present two cross-modal fragment semantic priming studies in order to address this question. Both experiments use first syllable fragments in order to prime semantically related targets. Experiment 1 utilises words whose first syllable occurs with both accent patterns, creating a situation in which there is lexical competition between words that differ solely in terms of accent. Experiment 2 removes this competition by using words that have no such accent competitors. Our results show that native speakers of Swedish use tonal word accent in lexical access: Accent mispronunciations failed to prime semantically related targets, regardless of whether primes had accent competitors or not. Results for a group of early bilingual speakers (who grew up with one Swedish-speaking parent and one other non-tonal language) showed no differences in processing compared to the monolinguals. This indicates that the extraction of accent features during acquisition and their use in lexical access is robust, even in a scenario where multiple input languages lead to tonal word accent being a useful feature for only some of the lexical items that are being acquired. There is no doubt that the accent system is well entrenched into the bilinguals’ phonological system.

T3 sandhi in Mandarin is a phonological alternation where two adjacent T3-T3 tones are not allowed and become T[2]-T3. Although this phenomenon has been extensively studied in previous work, concerns about how T3 sandhi is represented in the mental lexicon remain controversial. We approached the issue of representation in a series of cross-modal priming experiments, including two semantic priming experiments with and without context. Our results indicated that T2 failed to prime a target beginning with T3 in a non-sandhi context. However, both T2 and T3 were able to induce semantic activation when appropriate contextual information was present. Conversely, when such information was absent, only T3 activated the lexical entry. Thus, our study suggests that T3 is specified, as expected for dissimilation, and T2 is resolved by a re-writing rule only under appropriate contextual information.

COVID-19 is the most challenging global public health crisis we have faced for many decades. However, it is more than a health crisis. The impacts go well beyond the medical sphere and are changing lives, livelihoods, communities and economies within and across nation-states. The British Academy launched its Shape the Future initiative in May 2020 to bring insights from the social sciences, humanities and the arts together to understand how we can shape a positive future for people, the econ�omy and the environment post-pandemic. These disciplines have a critical role to play in the handling of and recovery from the pandemic. This paper summarises the discussions held during twenty policy and research workshops which considered topics under three broad themes relevant to the post-pandemic future: revitalising societal well-being, recreating an inclusive economy around purpose, and revisiting the histories and cultures of science, policy and politics.

The speech stream is divided up in chunks as it is being planned, delivered, and processed. Focusing on domains at the lower levels of prosodic complexity, in particular that of the phonological word, we trace the history of the scholarly study of prosodic chunking, contrasting two basic approaches. One, prominently espoused in generative grammar, sees prosodic grouping determined by surface-syntactic constituency, directly or mediated through a hierarchy of specifically prosodic units. For the other, with a substantial tradition behind it (here illustrated through a few landmark studies), prosodic grouping is rhythmically motivated, instantiating metrical patterns of prominence alternations rather than being dictated by the groupings of morphology and syntax.

Prefixes and suffixes display distinctive linguistic behaviors. Not only does a crosslinguistic asymmetry exist between them in terms of structural properties, combinatorial constraints, and frequency, but there is also extensive evidence that prefixes and suffixes are processed differently. To further investigate the differences in how prefixes and suffixes are processed, we conducted five crossmodal priming experiments in Bengali, a language rich in derivational morphology. Although all combinations of stems, prefixes, and suffixes provided facilitation, we found that stems primed related prefixed forms to a greater degree than they primed related suffixed forms. Furthermore, morphologically related prefixed forms primed other prefixed forms more than suffixed forms primed related suffixed forms. On the basis of these findings, we propose that the asymmetry in how prefixes and suffixes are processed is due not only to differences in perception, reading, and inhibition from the phonological cohort, but also to the salience of the morpheme boundaries in affixed word representations during recognition.

The present study investigates the intonational tune of syntactically unmarked polar question in Tianjin Mandarin. A production study was conducted to examine the phonological features of the syntactically unmarked polar question (a.k.a intonational yes/no question) tune by comparing against the statement tune. The results show a significant register lift HR and a high floating boundary tone H̥I. The tone shape and tone register played a significant role in how the tunes vary. A tune identification task then further verifies whether the two prosodic features concluded from the production are used in perception. The results showed that both the register difference and the boundary tone made a difference in native speakers' perception in discriminating questions from statements.

Unlike languages where consonant duration is used contrastively to distinguish word meanings, long consonants in Mandarin Chinese only occur across morpheme boundaries as a result of concatenation and are referred to as fake geminates. To investigate whether Mandarin speakers employ duration contrast to differentiate fake Mandarin geminates and corresponding singletons as well as the underlying pattern of the processing, two auditory oddball tasks were carried out to measure the component of MMN, an index of the automatic detection of deviant stimulus. Mandarin pseudoword pairs which differ only in the duration of the medial consonant ([an1 an1] ∼ [an1 nan1] vs. [an2 an2] ∼ [an2 nan2]) were used as stimuli. An asymmetric pattern of brain activation was observed where the singleton deviant in the context of geminate words elicited higher MMNs than in the reversed condition. These findings are in line with earlier research suggesting that the singleton is unspecified for a moraic representation, while the geminate is specified. Mandarin speakers can employ duration contrast to distinguish fake geminates and corresponding singletons; furthermore, the processing of fake concatenated geminates in contrast to singletons is similar to that of real geminates and corresponding singletons., Highlights • Mandarin speakers use durational cues to differentiate fake geminate/singleton contrast. • The contrast is represented asymmetrically with a geminate specified for its length with a mora while a singleton is not. • Asymmetric processing pattern between fake geminate/singleton contrast was found for word pairs with different tones.

In the present study, we examine the interactive effect of vowels on Mandarin fricative sibilants using a passive oddball paradigm to determine whether the HEIGHT features of vowels can spread on the surface and influence preceding consonants with unspecified features. The stimuli are two pairs of Mandarin words ([sa] ∼ [ʂa] and [su] ∼ [ʂu]) contrasting in vowel HEIGHT ([LOW] vs. [HIGH]). Each word in the same pair was presented both as standard and deviant, resulting in four conditions (/standard/[deviant]: /sa/[ʂa] ∼ /ʂa/[sa] and /su/[ʂu] ∼ /ʂu/[su]). In line with the Featurally Underspecified Lexicon (FUL) model, asymmetric patterns of processing were found in the [su] ∼ [ʂu] word pair where both the MMN (mismatch negativity) and LDN (late discriminative negativity) components were more negative in /su/[ʂu] (mismatch) than in /ʂu/[su] (no mismatch), suggesting the spreading of the feature [HIGH] from the vowel [u] to [ʂ] on the surface. In the [sa] ∼ [ʂa] pair, however, symmetric negativities (for both MMN and LDN) were observed as there is no conflict between the surface feature [LOW] from [a] to [ʂ] and the underlying specified feature [LOW] of [s]. These results confirm that not all features are fully specified in the mental lexicon: features of vowels can spread on the surface and influence surrounding unspecified segments.

This paper examines the processing of height and place contrasts in vowels in words and pseudowords, using mismatch negativity (MMN) to determine firstly whether asymmetries resulting from underlying representations found in the processing of vowels in isolation will remain in a word context and secondly whether there is any difference in the way these phonological differences manifest in pseudowords. The stimuli are two sets of English ablaut verbs and corresponding pseudowords (sit ~ sat/*sif ~ *saf and get ~ got/*gef ~ *gof) contrasting in vowel height ([ high ] vs. [ low ]) and place of articulation ([ coronal ] vs. [ dorsal ]). In line with previous research, the results show a processing asymmetry for place of articulation in both words and nonwords, while different vowel heights result in symmetrical MMN patterns. These findings confirm that an underspecification account provides the best explanation for featural processing and that phonological information is independent of lexical status.

Chapter 3 deploys methods from historical and experimental linguistics to examine how speakers of one language manage to understand people speaking another (related) language, identifying strategies they use to create meaning in response to the ‘other language’ – and strategies with which they create barriers to understanding in order to preserve a distinctive identity.

This paper attempts to determine a more precise timeline for the onset of Open Syllable Lengthening in Dutch. We examined two late 14th-century Brabantic texts in theManuscript Marshall 29(1375 AD),MellibeusandSaladijn, and compared these with an older Brabantic textLutgartto ascertain when exactly Open Syllable Lengthening originated in (Brabantic) Middle Dutch. A combination of diachronic correspondences and a careful examination of the texts written in verse during the course of approximately 75 years has helped us to establish the synchronic systems of 13th- and 14th-century Middle Dutch, and, furthermore, has allowed us to determine the onset of prosodic changes such as Open Syllable Lengthening. Orthographic, rhythmic, and metrical evidence from the three texts suggests that the process was incomplete in the earliest period and was finalized in the late 14th century in Brabant, thereby refuting the standard assumption that the lengthening was completed before the onset of Middle Dutch in general.*

The syntax-phonology mapping is rarely isomorphic. In Germanic, there is a strong tendency for weak (function) words to encliticise rather than to procliticise. Synchronic and diachronic evidence of encliticisation is available from a number of West and North Germanic languages (cf. Lahiri & Plank 2010). Our goal was to examine metrical grouping in Middle Dutch iambic and trochaic verse, in conjunction with orthographic contractions. Two of our texts, Mellibeus and Saladijn, are from Ms Marshall 29 (around 1375), the is Lutgart (around 1300). We asked, to what extent are orthographic contractions isomorphic with cliticisation, and how do they interact with metrical grouping? Furthermore, a close examination of the metre showed, that when properly scanned orthographic sequences of function words need not represent regular cliticisation patterns. First, words can be broken up in prosodic grouping and this holds also for orthographic contractions of function and/or lexical words (alsic < als ic) or (laetti < laet ghi). Second, contractions may not reflect cliticisation. They can be split across feet and the second element can be head of a foot; e.g. dade ic > dadic where ic can head the trochaic foot. Finally, we find that encliticisation is preferred to procliticisation in verse.

Basic Valence Orientation has been suggested as a typological parameter by Nichols, Peterson, & Barnes (2004). Generalising over the entire lexicon, the idea is that languages can be distinguished as transitivising or detransitivising, depending on whether their verbs are basically intransitive or transitive and the opposite valency values require some means of derivation, such as causativisation or decausativisation. Whereas derivedness among valency opposites is assessed through easy-to-spot overt segmental morphological or syntactic markers by Nichols et al. (2004), we argue that phonological alternations, on their own or attendant upon conjugation class switches between intransitives and transitives, can be as directed as derivations are which are implemented through adding segmental markers. Illustrating from German, we show that stem vowel patterns in strong and corresponding weak verbs (with the former expressing inflectional categories through ablaut) as well as umlaut alternations in verb derivation are systematically involved in valency oppositions and are both directed. Thus, German emerges as being typologically mixed, being strongly transitivising on the grounds of such asymmetric formal patterns, while also showing (as observed by Nichols et al. 2004) a detransitivising or indeterminate disposition through syntactic “middle” marking or verb lability. This typological result is also of diachronic significance, insofar as the older transitivising inclination is seen to have been remarkably pertinacious, long surviving the loss of the affixal valency-increasing morphology of Common Germanic and able to hold its own against more recent detransitivising competition. published

English makes use of a wide-spread pattern of word class alternation known as ‘zero-derivation.’ This involves pairs of homophonous forms which are semantically related, yet differ in part-of-speech (e.g. a knot vs. to knot). Many theories have been proposed to describe the relationship between these forms, with some proposing that to knot is covertly derived from a knot in the same way as government is from govern; an alternative view is that these pairs are instead two forms of a single lexeme with no inherent word class. We explore these claims in the context of morphological processing, using three delayed priming lexical decision tasks. The results suggest that some pairs are in a covert derivational relationship, in which the derived form is morphologically more complex than the base. However, not all such pairs are related this way, as some instead behave like inflectional relatives belonging to a single, underspecified lexical entry. Together, the experiments offer support for a mixed model, in which the grammar distinguishes between different kinds of zero-related pairs based on their underlying morphological relationships – a covert distinction to which morphological processing may be sensitive.

Background: Learning is the act of acquiring, modifying and reinforcing existing knowledge, behavior, skills and values. This phenomenon of learning is dominated by an individual’s learning style. Learning style is a popular concept in psychology and education, and it refers to how a person learns best. This study aims to identify the Learning Styles of the first year MBBS and BDS students at NBMC by administering the questionnaire of the VARK model.Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed in the Department of Physiology at North Bengal Medical College, West Bengal after. The VARK questionnaire 7.8 version was administered to 180 first year MBBS and BDS students from the 2017-2018 batch who had volunteered for the study. The Questionnaire consisted of 16 questions, along with a scoring chart. Students were allowed to choose more than one option. If in majority of the questions they opted for a single sensory modality they were considered as unimodal learners and if they chose multiple options, they were recognized as multimodal learners.Results: The study showed 57% of the students to be multimodal learners and 43% to be unimodal learners. Read/Write was the most preferred (31.22%) sensory modality followed by kinesthetic mode (29.57%).Conclusions: As majority of our students are multimodal learners teachers should incorporate active teaching and learning strategies to cater to all types of learners. Also, as the most preferred method is Read/Write which includes googling and the use of internet to browse for information, we must try and incorporate e-learning into our curriculum.

In an ERP experiment with cross-modal priming, we found evidence for graded interpretability of complex pseudowords, expressed as differences in the degree of priming between a complex pseudoword and its embedded base word. Only pseudowords that were constructed according to the morphological constraints of the language (for instance that nouns suffixed in {-ung} in German must be derived from a verbal base) led to significant attenuation of the N400 component relative to an unrelated control. Novel formations that consisted of the concatenation of a stem and affix regardless of their combinability (e.g. wirr (A., ‘confused’) and {-lein} suffix in German) did not modulate the N400 component. Moreover, gradations in degree of priming were observed with novel pseudowords that were the result of several morphological operations as a function of the composition of the full sequence of morphological operations. Any positions within the sequence that were filled by possible, but non-existing formations (thus compare hübsch (A., ‘pretty’) > *hübschen (V., ‘beautify’) > *Hübschung (N., ‘beautification’) versus spitz (A., ‘sharp’) > spitzen (V., ‘sharpen’) > *Spitzung (N., ‘sharpening’), whereby in the former the intermediate position is expressed through a possible, but non-existing verb form) led to reduced activation of the base word. These findings corroborate previous behavioural and neuroimaging results in visual word recognition that found support for step-wise morphological decomposition in multi-affixed pseudowords and reveal that the composition of the derivational path can lead to gradations of interpretability in the recognition of spoken complex pseudowords.

On the evidence of four lexical-decision tasks in German, we examine speakers' sensitivity to internal morphological composition and abstract morphological rules during the processing of derived words, real and novel. In a lexical-decision task with delayed priming, speakers were presented with two-step derived nouns such as Heilung "healing" derived from the adjective heil "intact" via the verb heilen "to heal." These were compared with two sets of derived novel words, one with and the other without an intermediate verb; for example, *Spitzung "sharpening" from spitz "sharp" via spitzen "sharpen" (Experiment 1) and *Hubschung "beautifying" from hubsch "pretty" via *hubschen "beautify" (Experiment 2). The question was whether there would be a difference between the two types of novel words. Both sets were morphologically viable in terms of combinatory possibilities. Results indicated that extant and novel complex words activated their respective base forms; that is, Heilung, *Spitzung, *Hubschung all primed heil, spitz, hubsch. Both sets of novel words were then combined in a third (delayed priming) experiment, where again they primed their bases, but were nevertheless significantly different from each other. Items with real words in the intermediate position (*Spitzung) showed stronger priming effects. Controls that were only related in form or semantics did not prime; neither did structurally unviable pseudowords show priming. A final experiment (Experiment 4), comparing the two types of novel words (*Spitzung vs. *Hubschung) in a simple lexical-decision task, also revealed significant differences across these sets, suggesting that the lexical status of the intermediate derivation affects the processing of novel forms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

The authors address the question whether phonological features can be used effectively in an automatic speech recognition (ASR) system for pronunciation training in non-native language (L2) learning. Computer-aided pronunciation training consists of two essential tasks—detecting mispronunciations and providing corrective feedback, usually either on the basis of full words or phonemes. Phonemes, however, can be further disassembled into phonological features, which in turn define groups of phonemes. A phonological feature-based ASR system allows the authors to perform a sub-phonemic analysis at feature level, providing a more effective feedback to reach the acoustic goal and perceptual constancy. Furthermore, phonological features provide a structured way for analysing the types of errors a learner makes, and can readily convey which pronunciations need improvement. This paper presents the authors implementation of such an ASR system using deep neural networks as an acoustic model, and its use for detecting mispronunciations, analysing errors, and rendering corrective feedback. Quantitative as well as qualitative evaluations are carried out for German and Italian learners of English. In addition to achieving high accuracy of mispronunciation detection, the system also provides accurate diagnosis of errors.

This paper presents a phonological feature based computer aided pronunciation training system for the learners of a new language (L2). Phonological features allow analysing the learners’ mispronunciations systematically and rendering the feedback more effectively. The proposed acoustic model consists of a multi-task deep neural network, which uses a shared representation for estimating the phonological features and HMM state probabilities. Moreover, an active learning based scheme is proposed to efficiently deal with the cost of annotation, which is done by expert teachers, by selecting the most informative samples for annotation. Experimental evaluations are carried out for German and Italian native-speakers speaking English. For mispronunciation detection, the proposed feature-based system outperforms conventional GOP measure and classifier based methods, while providing more detailed diagnosis. Evaluations also demonstrate the advantage of active learning based sampling over random sampling.

Bengali has a robust medial geminate/singleton contrast across oral stops and nasals in five places of articulation. This chapter presents a synchronic account of the phonological system involving the consonantal length contrast, which supports an asymmetric moraic representation of geminates. Based on these representational assumptions, two EEG and two behavioural experiments were conducted to investigate the processing of this geminate/singleton contrast by Bengali native speakers. The results reveal a processing asymmetry for the duration contrast: the processing of the duration contrast is indeed asymmetric: a geminate mispronunciation is accepted for a singleton real word, while the reverse is not the case. This provides evidence that the lexical representation of the duration contrast must be asymmetric and thus privative rather than equipollent.