Thesis (PhD(NT)--Universiteit van Pretoria, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 260-280).

Thesis (Th. M.)--Master's Seminary, 2002. / Abstract. Agorazo appears in Greek letters on t.p. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [116]-129).

This paper, a review of the literature on word order typology, examines in detail a body of work (Comrie 1989; Comrie, Dryer, Gil, Haspelmath 2005; Dryer 1988, 1991, 1992, 2007; Greenberg 1966; Hawkins 1983; Lehmann 1973; Vennemann 1974) that made a major contribution to linguistics by introducing the subfield of typology and the study of word order across the world’s languages from a typological perspective. Greenberg’s (1966) seminal paper advanced an understanding of cross-linguistic tendencies that had been unknown at the time and which are still being investigated today, especially his three-way typology based on the relative position of V with respect to S and O. Lehmann (1973) and Vennemann (1974) pushed the VO/OV distinction which led to a reanalysis and diminishing of the role of S as an organizing parameter. Two theories, Vennemann’s Head-Dependent Theory and Hawkins’ Cross-Category Harmony, account for many attested correlation pairs, but neither is as strong as Dryer’s Branching Direction Theory in terms of explanatory adequacy, elegance, and adherence to observed cross-linguistic tendencies. As far as theoretical approaches, we note that generative grammar with its focus on single-language study cannot provide an account of the variations in the world’s languages, while the typological approach comes closer to describing universals of language based on empirical data. Finally, I present the idea that investigations of word order from a typological perspective can be successfully undertaken using a functionalist approach within the framework of Optimality Theory. / text

Compounding is one of the most productive methods to construct words in different languages, e.g. joining the words “super” and “man” gives the compound word “superman”. For decades, researchers are interested to know how compound words are stored and retrieved in the lexicon. Different theories of lexical storage and retrieval of compound words were proposed to explain the compound word processing observed in both normal and abnormal adult subjects. However, little studies have attempted to apply these theories to explain the developmental pattern of storage and retrieval of compound words. To fill the gap, the major aim of the current study is to investigate the power of different theories of lexical storage and retrieval of compound words in explaining the typical and atypical development of compound word processing in Chinese children. Altogether, 20 grade 2 children, 22 grade 4 children, and 17 grade 6 children screened to have normal non-verbal intelligence and reading abilities were recruited from a local mainstream school. Three experiments were conducted to investigate the existence of the holistic representations of compound words and the representations of their constituent morphemes in the lexicon, and their involvement during the compound word retrieval processes across different grade levels. Results show that grade 4 and grade 6 children demonstrate significant whole-word frequency, morphological family size and semantic transparency effects in all three experiments, a pattern which resembles that observed in normal adult subjects. The grade 2 children, however, only demonstrate significant whole-word frequency effect but not the morphological family size and the semantic transparency effect. The results indicate that grade 4 and grade 6 children adopt the partial-decomposed approach of compound word storage and retrieval (e.g. Taft, 2003). As for the grade 2 children, it is hypothesized that their performances represent a developing stage of the partial-decomposed approach, where networks of morphological relations between family members were underdeveloped in their lexicon. Further investigation of the compatibility of the partial-decomposed approach in explaining the compound word storage and retrieval pattern resulted from atypical development was conducted. The three experiments mentioned above were administered on 16 poor readers (PR), 16 reading-level-matched (RL) peers and 16 chronological-agematched (CA) peers. Interestingly, the PR group’s performances resemble that of the RL and CA group in experiments of whole-word frequency and morphological family size but not in experiment of semantic transparency. The PR group’s performances can be explained by assuming a deficit in identifying shared semantic features between compound words and their constituents in the partial-decomposed approach. It is proposed that the PR group identifies frequently occurring morphemes as salient orthographic reading units without recognizing the shared semantic features between compound words and their constituents. In summary, results of the current study support the partial-decomposed approach of lexical storage and retrieval of compound words. The current study further proposes (i) a developing stage of the partial-decomposed approach to explain the compound word processing within an under-developed lexicon and (ii) a deviated partial-decomposed approach to explain the compound word processing of children with reading difficulties. / published_or_final_version / Speech and Hearing Sciences / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Psychology / Master / Master of Philosophy

A connectionist architecture is developed that can be used for modeling choice probabilities and reaction times in psychophysics and word recognition. The network architecture consists of a feed-forward network and a decoding module. Learning is by mean-variance back-propagation, an extension of the standard back-propagation learning algorithm. The new learning procedure is interpreted as a selective attention mechanism, and leads to a better model of learning in simple identification tasks than the standard back-propagation. Choice probabilities are modeled by the input/output relations of the network, and reaction times are modeled by the time taken for the network, particularly the decoding module, to achieve a stable state. The model is applied to both unidimensional and multidimensional identification tasks in psychophysics and to word recognition.

No description available.

Six experiments were conducted to address the role of phonological information in visual word recognition. A semantic decision task was used to ensure that word meanings were accessed. Experiments 1-4 showed that subjects make more false positive errors on homophone foils (e.g. living thing-FLEE) than on spelling controls (e.g. living thing-FLEX) only when both members of the homophone pair are uncommon and are similarly spelled. In Experiment 5, there was an increase in errors on low but not high frequency homophone category exemplars when they were preceded by a word related to the other member of the homophone pair (e.g. SHATTER-BRAKE). In Experiment 6, subjects produced longer decision latencies on homophone exemplars than on semantic controls only when they were low in frequency. These results indicate that, even in skilled readers, phonological information mediates the access of meaning for low frequency words, and that orthographic activation also contributes to the activation of their meanings.

No description available.

No description available.