Perception and Production of Clitics

为什么有后缀的语言比有前缀的语言多？为什么既有前缀又有后缀的语言更多地使用后缀？一种解释是，单词的开头更突出，因此更重要，但很少有人对说话者理解和产生前缀的相对能力进行研究，而不是后缀。以往的研究大多以英语为研究对象，对其他语言的研究较少，主要是对法语、西班牙语等与英语相关的语言进行研究。本次合作研究的目的是分析不同位置的受试者加工和产出的差异，并检验跨语言的差异是否相同。这项研究的目标是一种与英语和其他印欧语言无关的语言：纳赫-达吉斯坦语系的乌迪语。它既考察了词缀，也考察了词缀、词缀的前身。Clitics是以主词发音的小词，类似于英语中以动词主语He‘ll Go来发音的’will‘。UDI的不同寻常之处在于，它可以出现在动词的四个不同位置：动词末尾、动词之前、动词有意义的部分之间和动词词根内部。心理语言学实验将比较不同位置的词缀的知觉/产出，并比较同一位置的词缀和同一位置的词缀。此外，研究人员将把UDI的这些方面与欧洲葡萄牙语的相同方面进行比较，欧洲葡萄牙语是另一种既有词缀又有斜体的语言，可以出现在不同的位置。这项研究具有重要的意义，因为它将为人类理解单词的能力提供一种解释，并将这种解释应用于语言之间的类型差异以及从词缀到词缀的历史变化。研究人员将与UDI扫盲专家合作，并将根据他们的研究创建有助于扫盲工作的材料。

Why are there more languages that have suffixes than ones that have prefixes? Why do languages that have both prefixes and suffixes use the suffixes more? One explanation that has been suggested is that the beginnings of words are more salient and therefore more important Yet little research has been done on the relative ability of speakers to understand and produce prefixes in contrast to suffixes. Most prior research has been conducted on English; the little research on other languages is mostly on languages related to English, such as French or Spanish.The goals of this collaborative research project are to analyze processing and production differences among clitics occurring in different positions, and to test whether any differences are the same cross-linguistically. The research targets a language that is unrelated to English and other Indo-European languages: Udi, a member of the Nakh-Daghestanian language family. It examines both affixes and the precursors of affixes, clitics. Clitics are little words that are pronounced with a host word, similar to the way English 'will' can be pronounced with the subject of a verb: he'll go. Udi is unusual in having clitics that can occur in four different positions in the verb: at the end of verbs, before the verbs, between meaningful parts of the verb, and inside the root of the verb. Psycholinguistic experiments will compare the perception/production of clitics in different positions, and compare clitics in one position with suffixes occurring in the same position. Further, the researchers will compare these aspects of Udi with the same aspects of European Portuguese, another language with both affixes and clitics that can occur in various positions. This research is significant because it will inform an interpretation of the human ability to understand words and will apply this interpretation to typological differences among languages and the historical change from clitics to affixes. Researchers will work with an Udi literacy expert and will create materials based on their research that will aid in literacy efforts.