Processing of verb tense Cover Image

Processing of verb tense
Processing of verb tense

Author(s): Aleksandar Kostić, Jelena Havelka
Subject(s): Morphology, Lexis, Psycholinguistics, South Slavic Languages, Cognitive Psychology, Experimental Pschology
Published by: Društvo psihologa Srbije
Keywords: psycholinguistics; inflectional morphology; verb tense; lexical decision;

Summary/Abstract: Processing of Serbian inflected verbs was investigated in two lexical decision experiments. In the first experiment subjects were presented with five forms of future tense, while in the second experiment the same verbs were presented in three forms of present and future tense. The outcome of the first experiment indicates that processing of inflected verb is determined by the amount of information derived from the average probability per congruent personal pronoun of a particular verb form. This implies that the cognitive system is not sensitive to verb person per se, nor to the gender of congruent personal pronoun. Results of the second experiment show that for verb forms of different tenses, presented in the same experiment, the amount of information has to be additionally modulated by tense probability. Such an outcome speaks in favor of cognitive relevance of verb tense.

  • Issue Year: 35/2002
  • Issue No: 3-4
  • Page Range: 299-316
  • Page Count: 18
  • Language: English