Semantic Typicality of Affixes Facilitates Word Processing: MEG Evidence From Arabic.

ABSTRACT: Upon reading a word, we decompose it into meaningful parts-morphemes. Even if novel, we can derive a likely meaning for it based on how its parts typically behave. Given the typical meaning of affix "-ery," we may guess that a bottlery is a place to make bottles, although we may alternatively guess that it is the craft of bottle making. In this study, we operationalize this feature-an affix's semantic typicality-to investigate affix semantics' role in word processing. Using a lexical decision task and a double dissociative design in an MEG setting, we took advantage of Arabic's highly productive word-pattern derivational system to investigate the role of meaning typicality for derivational morphology. We contrasted one affix typically denoting tools and atypically places with another affix

SUBMITTER: Azar M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12674548 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature