Ussishkin, A., Twist, A., and Velan, H. (2007). Lexical organization in Semitic: Psycholinguistic evidence from Modern Hebrew and Maltese. Distributed by email.

This paper describes two studies that begin a research program to investigate the psychological validity of consonantal root vs whole word theories of Semitic morphology. The traditional analysis of Semitic verbal and nominal morphology states that each lemma class is based on a single consonantal root, such that each word form is produced by the combination of the consonantal root with a syllabic (vowel & consonant) affix, into a bare (C*V*)* template. However, other analyses have proposed that words might be accessed as whole words. (And that the template merely reflects historical word formation processes.) For example, a previous proposal by Ussishkin theorized that the word forms in a semantically-related lemma class are all derived from a single base form, with overriding infixes.

There are two experiments described here, one in Hebrew and one in Maltese. The basic experimental paradigm is that of lexical decision. Whereas previous related research has typically used visual presentation of stimuli, in these studies the stimuli were presented auditorily. Since the orthography of Semitic languages typically gives preferential status to consonants, orthographic presentation of stimuli creates a potential confound. The primary stimuli were words and pseudo-words created using two common conjugation patterns (called binyanim for Hebrew, themes for Maltese). The consonants were also common roots, so that the pseudo-words were incidentally unattested forms rather than morphologically illicit.

In both studies, the frequency effect was not properly controlled, in the first study because of an error in the design (Ussishkin, personal communication — but didn’t elaborate), and in Maltese because there was no corpus available at that time. The results of these studies are difficult to interpret, but with a later study (presented in person) they support the theory that both the consonantal root and the whole word are stored in long term memory. The facilitatory effect of word form frequency as well as the facilitatory effect of morphological family size (the number of word forms in a lemma class) indicate that information about whole words is stored in memory, but little or no delay for more complex forms and the organization into lemma classes, as well as other studies, make it clear that the consonantal root does have strong psychological validity.