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Non-Maori-speaking New Zealanders have a Maori proto-lexicon.


ABSTRACT: We investigate implicit vocabulary learning by adults who are exposed to a language in their ambient environment. Most New Zealanders do not speak Māori, yet are exposed to it throughout their lifetime. We show that this exposure leads to a large proto-lexicon - implicit knowledge of the existence of words and sub-word units without any associated meaning. Despite not explicitly knowing many Māori words, non-Māori-speaking New Zealanders are able to access this proto-lexicon to distinguish Māori words from Māori-like nonwords. What's more, they are able to generalize over the proto-lexicon to generate sophisticated phonotactic knowledge, which lets them evaluate the well-formedness of Māori-like nonwords just as well as fluent Māori speakers.

SUBMITTER: Oh Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7749111 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Non-Māori-speaking New Zealanders have a Māori proto-lexicon.

Oh Y Y   Todd S S   Beckner C C   Hay J J   King J J   Needle J J  

Scientific reports 20201218 1


We investigate implicit vocabulary learning by adults who are exposed to a language in their ambient environment. Most New Zealanders do not speak Māori, yet are exposed to it throughout their lifetime. We show that this exposure leads to a large proto-lexicon - implicit knowledge of the existence of words and sub-word units without any associated meaning. Despite not explicitly knowing many Māori words, non-Māori-speaking New Zealanders are able to access this proto-lexicon to distinguish Māori  ...[more]

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