Are some morphological units more prone to spelling variation than others? A case study using spontaneous handwritten data

Bibliographic Data

ID7994039
AuthorsKevan Berg (0000-0003-4059-3106, University of Bonn, corresponding author), Stefan Hartmann (0000-0002-1186-7182, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf), Daniel Claeser (Fraunhofer Institute for Communication, Information Processing and Ergonomics)
Year2023
Volume34
Issue2
Pages173-188
Publication date2023-10-09
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueMorphology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1871-5621 • E-ISSN: 1871-5656
PublisherSpringer Science+Business Media (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1007/s11525-023-09417-4
OpenAlexW4387435682
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited22

The relation between morphology and spelling is an important source of evidence for theories of linguistic processing. In particular, spelling errors can help us assess the role of morphological structure in language users’ mental representations of words in authentic texts. Previous research suggests that some morphological units are more prone to spelling errors than others, partly depending on the degree to which they are perceived as separate units. In this paper, we want to test this hypothesis by exploring graphemic variation in a collection of 1,667 German school-exit exams. Specifically, we code the spelling errors for their morphological structure. We can show that inflectional suffixes show a much higher probability of final letter omissions compared to final stems or derivational suffixes. We also find tentative evidence that case markers are more often affected by omissions than number markers

German · Linguistics · Natural language processing · Relation (database · Spelling · Variation (astronomy · Computer Science · Natural Language Processing Techniques · Psychology · Reading and Literacy Development · Second Language Acquisition and Learning

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