epresentation in the mental lexicon of Korean prefinal endings

Abstract

A 'priming lexical decision task' and a 'self-paced reading task' were conducted to investigate the representation in the mental lexicon of Korean prefinal endings. We observed the extent to which prefinal endings are likely to have their own representation in the lexicon according to three factors: 'type of prefinal ending,' 'frequency of the stem,' and 'frequency of conjunction between prefinal endings and final endings,' and found that prefinal endings with high-frequency stems were significantly more likely to have their own representation than those with low-frequency stems. The type of prefinal ending and the frequency of conjunction between prefinal endings and final endings had no significant effect on the likelihood of being represented independently, and the entire conjugation was more likely to be represented. The experimental results suggest that Korean speakers' mental lexicon has a dual structure of a surface lexicon and a deep lexicon, in which all lexical conjugations are stored in the surface lexicon, and some conjugations containing high-frequency stems are separated into stems and endings and stored in the deep lexicon, where they function as objects of reference.