This folder contains the raw data and the R Markdown script for reproducing all analyses and figures included in the paper titled:
**"Morphosyntactic Underspecification Affects the Processing of Verbal Forms at Different Levels of Abstraction in L1 and L2 German"** published in *Bilingualism: Language and Cognition*, (2024).
Authors:
**Andreas Opitz, Denisa Bordag & Alberto Furgoni**
## Abstract:
Using a priming paradigm, we investigated the processing of overtly identical verb forms with different sets
of morphosyntactic features in L1 and L2 German. We found that more specific functions of a verb (inflected verbs)
were better primes for less specific verb functions (past participles) than vice versa.
For L1 speakers, these priming asymmetries were observed regardless of whether the lexical verb was repeated
in prime and target or not (i.e., priming also for abstract configurations). For L2 learners, a similar but not
native-like asymmetric priming pattern was seen only with repetition of the lexical verb.
It was absent when the verb was not repeated. We conclude that in L2, morphosyntactic information is processed
more on a lexical, item-based level compared to L1. We discuss our results in the context of several accounts,
e.g., Shallow Structure Hypothesis, Declarative Procedural Model and the Ontogenesis Model
of the L2 Lexical Representation.
**This folder contains the following files:**
- The raw data: 'PartPriming_raw_data.txt'
- The R-script: 'PartPriming_Analysis.rmd'
- Processed HTML output 'PartPriming_Analysis.html' (inlcluding code and output)
- Processed PDF output 'PartPriming_Analysis.pdf'
The script can be run in RStudio if the following necessary R packages are installed (see also the beginning of the script):
- for data handling, summary and markdown:
knitr
kableExtra
dplyr
tidyr
- for statistical modeling:
lmerTest
emmeans
- for visualization and figures:
ggplot2
ggpubr
***Naming of variables in the raw data ('PartPriming_raw_data.txt') is as follows (see also intro in the R-file):***
**dependent variables in data set:**
- 'Target.RT': reaction times to target words in ms
- 'Target.ACC': accuracy to target words; 0-incorrect, 1-correct
**independent variables:**
- 'Func.Alt': Function Alternation: same function - changed function in prime and target
- 'Lex.Rep': Lexical Repetition: same verb - different verb in prime and target
- 'T.Form': Form of the Target: inflected - participle
- 'ItemID': identifier for items
- 'ParticipantID': anonymised identifier for participants
- 'CERFLevel': Language Proficiency
- 'Age': age of participant
- 'Sex': gender of participant
# End of File
