Syllable frequency in lexical decision and naming of English words

Abstract

The importance of phonological syllables in recognition and pronunciation of visual words has been demonstrated in languages with a high degree of spelling-sound correspondence. In Spanish, multisyllabic words with frequent first syllables are named more quickly than those with less frequent first syllables, but receive slower lexical decisions. The latter effect is attributed to lexical competition from other words beginning with the same syllable. We examined syllable frequency effects on naming and lexical decision for 3,029 visually-presented words in English, a language with a high degree of irregularity in spelling/sound relationships, and in which phonological syllables are less clearly marked in printed words. The results showed facilitative effects of syllable frequency in both tasks, and these were stronger when syllables were defined orthographically than phonologically. The results suggest that activation of lexical candidates based on a syllabic code does not occur rapidly enough to interfere with lexical decision in English.Keywords: Syllable; Syllable frequency; Orthography; Phonology; Neighborhood; Similarity; Orthographic syllable 2 The nature of the sublexical representations that allow people to recognize and name words continue to be debated (e.g., Schiller, 2000), including the possibility that these may differ across languages. Although early studies suggested that phonological syllables were relevant to visual recognition of English words (Spoehr & Smith, 1973, 1975, further research rejected this idea and instead argued for the orthographic and morphological nature of visual lexical access (e.g., Taft, 1979; see Taft, 1991 for review). However, several studies in Spanish -a language with a shallow orthography --have shown that syllables can function as sublexical units in both visual word perception and word production (e.g., Carreiras, Álvarez, & de Vega, 1993;Ferrand, Segui, & Grainger, 1996). Recent studies in French and German support this view Mathey & Zagar, 2002). The basic methodology of the European studies has been to demonstrate influences of syllable frequency independent of whole-word frequency. In contrast, the reliability of syllable-frequency effects has received less attention in languages with a large degree of irregularity in the correspondence between spelling and pronunciation, such as English. Before proceeding to the current analyses of syllable frequency in English, we review results from other languages, and then extant data from English. Syllable frequency in word recognition tasks without production demandsThe impact of syllable frequency in Spanish visual word recognition is inhibitory, 1 consisting of slower reaction times and/or higher error rates for words with high-frequency syllables as compared to those with low-frequency syllables, independent of whole-word frequency. One of the earliest reports, using a task of self-paced reading, determined that it was positional frequency of the first syllable that slowed reading time rather than the total fre...

Using Spelling Skills in Brazilian Portuguese and English

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“…These features make syllable recognition difficult in print. It seems that syllables might not function as sublexical cues to help English children in visually perceiving or retrieving a word from their mental lexicon (Macizo & Van Petten, 2007). English children are therefore disadvantaged in deploying the knowledge that they might possess about spelling rules.…”

InfoSyll: A Syllabary Providing Statistical Information on Phonological and Orthographic Syllables

“…In particular, inhibitory effects are assumed to ensue from lexical competition between syllabic neighbours while facilitatory effects are assumed to ensue from facilitation during the retrieval in the mental syllabary of the articulatory-phonetic syllable programs required for word pronunciation (see Levelt and Wheeldon 1994). In the latter case, the postlexical process of syllable retrieval might shadow the lexical competition effects (Macizo and Van Petten 2007).…”

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