Browsing by Author "Ojaniemi, Juuso"

This study investigated the processing of morphologically complex words in early childhood. Words are morphologically complex if they consist of more than one morpheme, the minimal meaning-bearing units of language. Previous studies indicate that there are two distinct routes used in the processing of morphologically complex words. Some words are stored in memory holistically and processed through these full-form memory traces. Other words are decomposed into their constituent morphemes, with morphemes and rules guiding their use forming the basis of processing. Research with adults has indicated that derivations are processed through their full-form memory traces, while inflections are decomposed into their constituent morphemes. However, research on neural mechanisms of morphological processing in early childhood is still missing. This study aimed to investigate whether children process morphologically complex words in a similar fashion to adults. Twelve 3–4-year-old Finnish-speaking children with normal language development took part in the study. Event-related potentials were extracted from the 64-channel EEG data. The focus was on mismatch negativity (MMN), which is associated with, among other things, automatic processing of language. Activation of full-form memory traces and syntactic processing tend to elicit distinct patterns of MMN responses. Moreover, the MMN has recently been used to demonstrate differences between processing of derivations and inflections. Inflected pseudowords elicited stronger MMN responses than real inflected words. This pattern of MMN responses is typical of syntactic processing. Therefore, the results indicate that inflections were processed syntactically, via morphological decomposition. In contrast to previous studies with adults, no difference was observed between MMN responses to derivations and inflections. Overall, these results suggest that children process inflections but not derivations in an adult-like manner. This can be taken as evidence for early development of syntactic processing and slower, more experience-dependent development of full-form memory traces