The Generalization of Inflectional and Derivational Patterns to Novel Stems by L1 Turkish Learners of L2 English

Abstract

Studies investigating the morphological processing of affixed forms have to date focused predominantly on inflectional rather than derivational forms and have mostly tested L1 speakers. The present study investigated how high and low proficiency Turkish learners of L2 English generalize regular/irregular verbal inflection and deadjectival un-/in- derivatives to novel stems in an acceptability judgment task. The results showed that the participants generalized both the inflectional and derivational affixes to novel stems when these stems were similar to the existing stems appearing together with these affixes. However, the participants showed no preference when novel stems were dissimilar both in the case of verbal inflection and deadjectival derivatives. The proficiency level of the participants did not affect the overall response patterns. The results are discussed in terms of different models proposed for the morphological processing of complex word forms.

Keywords

• inflection
• derivation
• morphological processing
• L2 proficiency
• generalization