The aim of this thesis is to analyse the relation between morphological awareness and morphologically based spellings, in Portuguese (European Variant). Two situations where the spelling is determined by morphology are examined: when the spelling flouts letter-sound correspondence rules (consistency in the spelling of stems in base and in derived forms), and when there is more than one spelling for the same sound (discrimination in the spelling of homophone suffixes). The studies used cross-sectional (studies 1, 2 and 6) and longitudinal (studies 3, 4 and 5) designs. Study 1 examines when children from grades 1 to 4 (6- to 9-year-olds; N = 805) can take advantage of morphological information that is made available to them, implicitly, through morphological priming. The primes are base forms that share the same stem with the targets and contain well articulated, stressed vowels. The target words and pseudo-words are derived forms that contain non-stressed schwa vowels. Although differently pronounced the latter vowels are spelled consistently with those in the stems of the base forms. Primes were either oral or oral plus written. Priming effects were assessed by comparison with a non-primed condition. No priming effects were detected in 6- and 7-year-old children. Both priming conditions produced a significantly higher level of correct spelling in children 8 and 9 years of age. Oral plus written primes allowed older children to use morphological spellings in both words and pseudo-words. These results suggest that older children can use implicit morphological information to spell schwa vowels morphologically. Study 2 examined the concurrent relations between morphological awareness and morphologically based spellings. Two issues were considered: consistency in the spelling of stems in base and derived (or pseudo-derived) forms and discrimination in the spelling of words and pseudo-words ending in homophone suffixes. Children from grades 1 to 3 (6 to 8-year-olds; N = 184) participated in the study. It was found that there was a significant relation between morphological awareness and consistency in the spelling of stems in Base - Pseudo-derived stimuli, after controlling for differences in grade and IQ. Mixed results were found for the spelling of homophone suffixes. The only significant prediction obtained was between morphological awareness and discrimination in the spelling of the words ending in the homophone suffixes '-esa'/ '-eza'. In Study 3, the relation between morphological awareness and consistency in the spelling of stems is analysed, longitudinally. Children from grades 1 to 4 (6- to 9-year-olds; N = 184) were assessed in three sessions (A, B and C) each separated by six months. The results showed that some of the measures of morphological awareness could predict consistency in the spelling of stems over periods of six and of twelve months, after controlling for shared variance with Grade and IQ. This is indicative of a strong link between morphological awareness and consistency in the spelling of stems. In study 4, the relation between morphological awareness and discrimination in the spelling of words and pseudo-words ending in the homophone suffixes '-esa'/ '-eza' is analysed. The suffix '-esa' forms nouns that indicate origin or provenance. The homophone '-eza' forms abstract nouns. The participants and design were the same as in the previous study. It was found that the younger children tended to use one spelling for the two suffixes. Then, when alternative spellings were used, their assignment was unsystematic. Systematic assignment was rare even in the older children. Some measures of morphological awareness in session B, accounted for unique variance in the discrimination scores measured in session C, after controlling for differences explained by grade and IQ. In study 5, the relation between morphological awareness and discrimination in the spelling of words and pseudo-words ending in the homophone suffixes '-ice'/ '-isse' is analysed. The suffix '-ice' forms abstract nouns. The homophone '-isse' is used in the subjunctive of some verbs. The participants and design were the same as before. Correct assignment of suffixes followed the same pattern of spelling phases as described in the previous study. Significant predictions were found between sessions A and B, B and C and A and C. Some of the morphological awareness measures strongly predicted discrimination scores, after controlling for the effects of grade and IQ. Study 6 examines the spelling of older children (Grades 5, 7 and 9) and adults (student-teachers and in-service-teachers (N total = 107). The aim was to find out when consistency in the spelling of stems and discrimination of homophone suffixes were eventually achieved and whether the adult participants were aware of the morphological rules that make discrimination predictable. Consistency in the spelling of stems was only systematic in grade nine. Discrimination of the homophone suffixes '-esa'/ '-eza' was not completely systematic after sixteen years of instruction (student teachers) Discrimination of words ending in the homophone suffixes '-ice'/ '-isse' was systematic by student teachers. Discrimination in the spelling of pseudo-words was not achieved. Spelling justifications were asked from teachers. These revealed that the knowledge of morphological rules was scarce, in complete or absent. This thesis provides first evidence that older children can use morphological information that is provided, implicitly, through priming. It also shows that achieving consistency in the spelling of morphologically related stems is a long process. Systematic discrimination of homophone suffixes is even harder. However, morphological awareness was generally found to contribute strongly to the spelling, and to predict spelling outcomes, even after stringent controls for grade and IQ. Further research is necessary to examine how children develop morphologically based spellings that cannot be anchored first, in a stable phonological matrix. These results also suggest that instruction with a strong morphological rationale might significantly enhance spelling development.

This thesis examines the influence of morphological and identity priming to understand how repetition influences word recognition and novel word learning in first (L1) and second (L2) language adults. The following questions are addressed: How does morphological relatedness between repeated words influence (i) word recognition in natural reading and (ii) novel word learning? (iii) What interactions exist between word repetition and selective attention in novel word learning? Chapter 2 addresses question (i), finding little evidence of morphological priming effects (i.e., faster recognition of a word following a morphologically related word) in L2 reading, and none in L1. The effects of identity priming were ubiquitous in both groups. Chapter 3 examines question (ii) for L1 readers. Low-frequency base words (e.g., caltrop) and novel complex forms (e.g., caltroper) of those bases were primed by two repetitions of identical forms or alternate forms. Learning performance was consistently as good or better after identity priming than after morphological priming. However, orthographic and semantic learning for base forms was stronger in the morphological priming condition. Chapter 4 examines question (iii). Attention was manipulated by delivering attention-inducing instructions, while the control group received no instructions. Exposure was manipulated by embedding novel words either 2, 4, or 8 times. The presence of instruction led to a short-lived speed-up in eye-movements and faster recognition of novel words. Critically, L1 learners reached optimal performance in the post-tests earlier (after 4 exposures), while L2 learners’ performance continued to improve through more exposures. Overall, this thesis shows that morphological priming facilitated L2 visual word recognition and L1 novel word learning when a complex form is a prime, and the base form is a target. We discuss reasons for this asymmetric effect and these results in the framework of the theories of word learning and morphological processing. / Dissertation / Candidate in Philosophy

Compounding, constructing new words out of previously known words by means of simple concatenation mostly, can be counted as one of the major word production mechanisms in the majority of languages. Their importance in the history of human languages warrants a detailed study with respect to the language faculty and related cognitive aspects. In the last decade, compound production as well as comprehension have become highly debated and investigated areas of research. Morphological priming is one frequently employed paradigm for the investigation of compounding. Whether morphologically complex words undergo a decomposition-composition process, respectively, during comprehension and production or whether they are all listed in full form in the lexicon is one key question hitherto addressed in several studies related to English, German, Dutch and Chinese nominal compound words. The present study is concerned with compound production in Turkish. Various types of Turkish compounds were investigated ((i) bare JCs (

Submitted by Renata Lopes (renatasil82@gmail.com) on 2016-01-04T10:25:15Z No. of bitstreams: 1 brunostefaniferreiradeoliveira.pdf: 714261 bytes, checksum: ee8494fe1d9b406575240e4e36235327 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2016-01-25T15:35:37Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 brunostefaniferreiradeoliveira.pdf: 714261 bytes, checksum: ee8494fe1d9b406575240e4e36235327 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-01-25T15:35:37Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 brunostefaniferreiradeoliveira.pdf: 714261 bytes, checksum: ee8494fe1d9b406575240e4e36235327 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-02-23 / CAPES - Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / - / Research conducted in several countries has shown the importance of morphology in literacy. However, the results of the studies conducted in Brazilian−Portuguese are still inconsistent. The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between morphological awareness and morphological processing and reading in Brazilian−Portuguese. The study included 141 children from Grades 2−5 from private schools. Morphological awareness, phonological awareness, phonological memory and nonverbal intelligence were evaluated. Also an experimental task of lexical decision with priming technique was developed, to assess the morphological processing. The results indicated that the relationship between morphological awareness and reading appears only when the children analyzed were in the Grade 1 and Grade 5. The morphological awareness explains 10% of the reading ability, when controlled other variables in the regression analysis assessed. The morphological processing is perceived in children from Grade 2 and gradually developed until the Grade 1, when it is possible to notice a pattern similar to adults. There was no correlation between morphological awareness and morphological processing. Therefore, morphological awareness has a very important function in children from Grade 4, which reinforces the importance of teaching strategies in literacy that take into account the function of the ability to manipulate the words in the morpheme level.