Lexicalizing Letter Strings: The Effects of Repetition, Phonology, Grammatical Category and Context on the Lexicalization of Nonwords

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1997
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Swarthmore College. Dept. of Linguistics
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Thesis (B.A.)
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en_US
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Full copyright to this work is retained by the student author. It may only be used for non-commercial, research, and educational purposes. All other uses are restricted.
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Abstract
This study investigated the effects of repetition, grammatical category, and context on the lexicalization of nonwords. Toward this end, nonword targets were presented in sentential contexts over the course of two learning sessions. The effects of initiallexicalization of the target non words were measured using response latencies from a lexical decision task. The expectation was that signs of initiallexicalization would be evident when comparing response latencies from the post-learning session lexical decision task to the latencies from the pre-learning session lexical decision task. A longer post-learning session latency would suggest that the nonword had been lexicalized to some degree. However, the analyses indicate that repetition priming had an overwhelming effect on all the experimental variables. Marginal effects of grammatical category and context were also found. These last two results are suggestive, but firm conclusions would require further experimentation. The discussion focuses on modifications of the current investigation.
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