Abstract
Word final positions are sometimes described as optionally salient, depending on the presence or the absence of bound morphology. In fact, word final positions often incur disruptive phonological processes (such as deletion or assimilation) but these processes are partially blocked in the presence of bound morphology.
Some evidence suggests that these effects may also be active in the sublexicon (i.e. with no access to semantics). Investigations of this phenomenon so far focused on monolingual speakers, and little is known about the presence of these effects on speakers of English as L2.
This diploma thesis aims at partially filling this gap by focusing on the perceptual salience of word endings as perceived by second-language learners of English having Czech as L1. The methodology will be based on Cilibrasi (2015).
The subjects will be adult second-language learners of English of different language levels (B1, B2 and C1/C2). The subjects will be presented with stimuli recorded at the School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences in Reading by a trained linguist native speaker of English.
They will listen to pairs of nonwords and decide if the nonwords are identical or slightly different (i.e. a same/different task) by pressing one of two buttons. There will be three conditions: Condition 1: nonwords containing potential morphological information Condition 2: nonwords with no morphological information Condition 3: control condition We expect reaction times to reflect the presence of bound morphology, with nonwords containing bound morphology taking longer to be discriminated.
Further, we expect proficiency in English to be a co-predictor of reaction times, with proficient speakers showing a larger (native-like) effect of morphology. The study will also inevitably attempt to find evidence either for the rule-based or for the whole-word processing of words as regards the perceptual decomposition of inflected verbs into stems and affixes.
Finally, the study will compare the results of Cilibrasi's study of word-ending perception in native speakers of English with the results of this thesis and attempt to interpret any potential differences.