Doctoral Dissertation Research: L1 Biases in Learning Root-and-Pattern Morphology

我们的母语知识如何影响我们学习其他语言的能力？这篇论文考察了我们已经知道的规则是如何帮助或阻碍我们学习一门新语言的规则的。像阿拉伯语和马耳他语这样的闪族语言使用词根和模式的形态学来构成单词。与英语不同，英语中有意义的单词通常被附加在单词的末尾（disem -bowel-ment），闪族语言倾向于改变单词中间的元音，以达到同样的效果（kitaab 'book' - kutub 'books'）。虽然之前的大多数研究表明，学习如何正确地交织辅音和元音对说英语的人来说是非常困难的，但最近的研究表明，如果你说的是一门使用类似规则的语言，这项任务会更容易。为了进行这项研究，研究人员创造了一种模仿阿拉伯语复数对（如kitaab和kutub）的人工语言，并将其教授给说英语的人、学习阿拉伯语的学生、说阿拉伯语的人和说马耳他语的人。本研究采用两种心理语言学方法：分词任务和Wug测试来研究语言偏差对新语言学习规则的影响。分割任务允许直接与以前的研究进行比较，Wug测试对参与者学习人工语言的程度更为敏感。在分割任务中，参与者听一串随机的无意义单词，然后必须根据他们能够推断的规则选择他们听到的单词以及可能的单词。在Wug测试中，参与者被简单地展示了如何用一种“陌生语言”创造复数，然后被要求根据他们所学的规则为每个项目提供复数。参与者群体是根据他们对词根和模式形态学的接触程度来选择的，因为语言偏见可能依赖于母语学习，也可能在学习另一种语言时形成。本研究不仅对语言习得理论和词法心理表征理论有指导意义，而且对阿拉伯语教学法，特别是对传统学习者具有指导意义。

How does the knowledge of our first language affect our ability to learn other languages? This dissertation examines how the rules we already know help or hinder our efforts to learn rules in a new language. Semitic languages like Arabic and Maltese employ root-and-pattern morphology to form words. Unlike in English, where meaningful pieces of words are usually tacked onto the ends of words (dis-em-bowel-ment), Semitic languages tend to change the vowels in the middle of the words for the same effect (kitaab 'book' -- kutub 'books'). Though most of the previous research shows that learning how to correctly interweave consonants and vowels like this is very difficult for English speakers, recent research shows that this task is easier if you speak a language that uses similar rules. To carry out this research, an artificial language is created that mimics Arabic plural pairs like kitaab and kutub, and is taught to English speakers, students learning Arabic, Arabic speakers, and Maltese speakers.This research uses two psycholinguistic methods to investigate the effects of linguistic biases on learning rules in new languages: a segmentation task and a Wug Test. The segmentation task allows for direct comparison to previous studies, and the Wug Test is more sensitive to how well participants have learned the artificial language. In the segmentation task, participants listen to a randomized string of nonsense words, then must select the words that they heard as well as possible words based on the rule that they were able to extrapolate. In the Wug Test, participants are briefly shown how to create the plural in an "alien language", then are asked to provide the plurals for each item following the rules that they learned. Participant groups were selected on the basis of their exposure to root-and-pattern morphology, as linguistic biases may depend on learning a language natively or may be developed while learning another language. This research has implications not only for theories of language acquisition and mental representation of morphology, but also for Arabic language pedagogy, especially for heritage learners.