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This study examines the processing of morphologically complex words focusing on how morphological (in addition to orthographic and semantic) factors affect bilingual word recognition. We report findings from a large experimental study with groups of bilingual (Turkish/German) speakers using the visual masked-priming technique. We found morphologically mediated effects on the response speed and the inter-individual variability within the bilingual participant group. We conclude that the grammar (qua morphological parsing) not only enhances speed of processing in bilingual language processing but also yields more uniform performance and thereby constrains variability within a group of otherwise heterogeneous individuals.

Dieses Buch enthält Beiträge von Personen, die ihre Magister- oder Doktorarbeit unter der Betreuung von Manfred Krifka geschrieben haben. Es ist als kleines Abschiedsgeschenk für Manfred Krifka zum Ende seiner Amtszeit als Direktor des Leibniz-Zentrums für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft gedacht. Die Herausgeberin und der Herausgeber haben Beiträge zu sprachwissenschaftlichen und nicht-sprachwissenschaftlichen Themen in einer Vielzahl von Genres gesammelt. Diese Vielfalt spiegelt die Interessen und Forschungsthemen von Manfred Krifka wider. Sie spiegelt auch die Vielfalt der Menschen wider, denen Manfred Krifka geholfen hat.

Morphological variability in bilingual language production is widely attested. Producing inflected words has been found to be less reliable and consistent in bilinguals than in first-language (functionally monolingual) L1 speakers, even for bilingual speakers at advanced proficiency levels. The sources for these differences are not well understood. The current study presents a detailed investigation of morphological generalization processes in bilingual speakers' language production. We examined past participle formation of German using an elicited-production experiment containing nonce verbs with varying degrees of similarity to existing verbs testing a large group of bilingual Turkish/German speakers relative to L1 German speakers. We compared similarity-based lexical extensions with generalizations of morphological rules. The results show that rule-based generalizations are used less often and more variably within the bilingual group than within the L1 group. Our results also show a selective effect of age of acquisition on the bilingual speakers' morphological generalizations.

The current study investigates how bilingual children encode and produce morphologically complex words. We employed a silent-production-plus-delayed-vocalization paradigm in which event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded during silent encoding of inflected words which were subsequently cued to be overtly produced. The bilingual children's spoken responses and their ERPs were compared to previous datasets from monolingual children on the same task. We found an enhanced negativity for regular relative to irregular forms during silent production in both bilingual children's languages, replicating the ERP effect previously obtained from monolingual children. Nevertheless, the bilingual children produced more morphological errors (viz. over-regularizations) than monolingual children. We conclude that mechanisms of morphological encoding (as measured by ERPs) are parallel for bilingual and monolingual children, and that the increased over-regularization rates are due to their reduced exposure to each of the two languages (relative to monolingual children).

This study examines the processing of morphologically complex words focusing on how morphological (in addition to orthographic and semantic) factors affect bilingual word recognition. We report findings from a large experimental study with groups of bilingual (Turkish/German) speakers using the visual masked-priming technique. We found morphologically mediated effects on the response speed and the inter-individual variability within the bilingual participant group. We conclude that the grammar (qua morphological parsing) not only enhances speed of processing in bilingual language processing but also yields more uniform performance and thereby constrains variability within a group of otherwise heterogeneous individuals.

Speaking a late-learned second language (L2) is supposed to yield more variable and less consistent output than speaking one’s first language (L1), particularly with respect to reliably adhering to grammatical morphology. The current study investigates both internal processes involved in encoding morphologically complex words – by recording event-related brain potentials (ERPs) during participants’ silent productions – and the corresponding overt output. We specifically examined compounds with plural or singular modifiers in English. Thirty-one advanced L2 speakers of English (L1: German) were compared to a control group of 20 L1 English speakers from an earlier study. We found an enhanced (right-frontal) negativity during (silent) morphological encoding for compounds produced from regular plural forms relative to compounds formed from irregular plurals, replicating the ERP effect obtained for the L1 group. The L2 speakers’ overt productions, however, were significantly less consistent than those of the L1 speakers on the same task. We suggest that L2 speakers employ the same mechanisms for morphological encoding as L1 speakers, but with less reliance on grammatical constraints than L1 speakers.

The present study used event related potentials (ERPs) to investigate how native (L1) German-speaking second-language (L2) learners of English process sentences containing filler-gap dependencies such as Bill liked the house (women) that Bob built some ornaments for __ at his workplace. Using an experimental design which allowed us to dissociate filler integration from reanalysis effects, we found that fillers which were implausible as direct objects of the embedded verb (e.g. built the women) elicited similar brain responses (an N400) in L1 and L2 speakers when the verb was encountered. This confirms findings from behavioral and eye-movement studies indicating that both L1 and L2 speakers immediately try to integrate a filler with a potential lexical licensor. L1/L2 differences were observed when subsequent sentence material signaled that the direct-object analysis was in fact incorrect, however. We found reanalysis effects, in the shape of a P600 for sentences containing fillers that were plausible direct objects only for L2 speakers, but not for the L1 group. This supports previous findings suggesting that L2 comprehenders recover from an initially plausible first analysis less easily than L1 speakers.

This study reports developmental changes in morphological encoding across late childhood. We examined event-related brain potentials (ERPs) during the silent production of regularly vs. irregularly inflected verb forms (viz. -t vs. -n participles of German) in groups of eight- to ten-year-olds, eleven- to thirteen-year-olds, and adults. The adult data revealed an enhanced (right-frontal) negativity 300–450 ms after cue onset for the (silent) production of -t relative to -n past participle forms (e.g. geplant vs. gehauen ‘planned’ vs. ‘hit’). For the eleven- to thirteen-year-olds, the same enhanced negativity was found, with a more posterior distribution and a longer duration (=300–550 ms). The eight- to ten-year-olds also showed this negativity, again with a posterior distribution, but with a considerably delayed onset (800–1,000 ms). We suggest that this negativity reflects combinatorial processing required for producing -t participles in both children and adults and that the spatial and temporal modulations of this ERP effect across the three participant groups are due to developmental changes of the brain networks involved in processing morphologically complex words.

Jeder Mensch hat eine eigene, innere Uhr, die nicht immer synchron mit dem Tageslicht verläuft. Im Volksmund wird von „Eulen“ (Spätaufstehern) und „Lerchen“ (Frühaufstehern) gesprochen. Diese innere Uhr ist genetisch und beeinflusst zahlreiche Aspekte unseres Verhaltens, z.B. unsere präferierten Schlafenszeiten, sportliche Leistungsfähigkeit, sämtliche Organfunktionen und auch kognitive Leistungen. Es ist daher zu erwarten, dass auch die Sprachverarbeitung dem Einfluss der inneren Uhr unterliegt. Sprachliche Leistungen (Produktion und Verarbeitung) zählen zu den höheren kognitiven Funktionen und sind bisher selten auf rhythmische bzw. tageszeitliche Schwankungen wissenschaftlich untersucht worden. Daher ist das Ziel dieser Arbeit, solche Schwankungen in der sprachlichen Leistungsfähigkeit zu untersuchen. Hierfür wurde die Verarbeitung der anaphorischen Referenz gewählt. Zentrale Theorien aus der Linguistik beschäftigen sich mit der anaphorischen Referenz (Centering Theory, Optimality Theory in the Centering Theory, Accessibility Theory). Den meisten dieser Theorien ist gemeinsam, dass die Auswahl einer Anapher einem gewissen Ökonomieprinzip unterliegt: Wenn der Referent, auf den verwiesen werden soll, leicht zugänglich ist, dann sollte es sich um eine strukturell einfache Anapher handeln, z.B. um ein Personalpronomen. Demonstrativpronomen, oder die so genannten d-Pronomen (der, die, das), sowie Eigennamen, sind komplexere Anaphern und sollten verwendet werden, wenn der Referent weniger leicht zugänglich ist. Dieser Unterschied der Anaphern wurde auf seine tageszeitlichen Schwankungen in insgesamt 3 Experimenten untersucht: einer Feldstudie mit Schichtarbeitern, die in regelmäßigen Abständen während ihres Schichtdienstes Reaktionszeitaufgaben absolvierten und 2 EKP-Experimenten, die an zwei verschiedenen Tageszeiten durchgeführt wurden und so Aufschluss über tageszeitliche Unterschiede in der Hirnaktivität bei der Verarbeitung anaphorischer Referenzen geben sollen. Everyone has an inner clock, which is not always synchronized with daytime and nighttime. The individual differences of the inner clock are genetically determined and can vary by up to 8 hours: “extreme larks wake up when extreme owls go to sleep” (Roenneberg, 2003). Many aspects of human life are influenced by circadian rhythms, e.g. physical performance, sleep/wake patterns, cell and organ functions and cognitive performance. Language processing, being a higher order cognitive function, is therefore also assumed to change over the course of the day. To date there are not many studies examining language performance and its diurnal variations. The goal of this thesis, then, is to study such variations in language processing with psycholinguistic methods, looking at the phenomenon of anaphoric reference processing. Many important linguistic theories address the question of how an anaphoric reference is processed (Centering Theory, Optimality Theory in the Centering Theory, Accessibility Theory). Most of these theories have an assumption of underlying economy in common: if the referent is easily accessible, the anaphor should be of a simple type, e.g. a personal pronoun. Demonstrative pronouns, such as the German d-pronouns (der, die, das), noun phrases and names are more complex anaphors which bear more information than a simple pronoun and should therefore refer to a less easily accessible antecedent. With three experiments this difference in anaphor type is examined for its diurnal changes: one behavioral field study in which shift workers were regularly tested during their shifts; and two ERP-experiments conducted at two different times of day. The ERP experiments demonstrate the diurnal changes in brain activity during anaphoric processing.