Dissertation - Michael Becker

(80) Vowel pattern Experiment Lexicona-a 26% 2%o-a 29% 12%a-o 32% 21%i-o 33% 26%The results were analyzed with a mixed-effects logistic regression in R (R DevelopmentCore Team 2007) using the lmer function of the LME4 package, with participant and itemas random effect variables. With an unordered four-level vowel fixed-effect factor as apredictor and the choice of plural affix as a binary dependent variable, the vowel effectonly approaches significance. With [a-a] as a baseline, [a-o] is more conducive to choosingot-plurals (81), but the other two vowel patterns are not.(81) Estimate SE z p(Intercept) −1.1077 0.1431 −7.739 < 0.001a-o 0.3425 0.1848 1.853 0.064i-o 0.3042 0.1852 1.642 0.101o-a 0.1678 0.1858 0.903 0.366An inspection of the results for the individual items (in 83) raised the suspicion thatsome stimuli got a very high rate of ot-responses due to the similarity of their final syllable(or their last three segments) to the final syllable (or last three segments) of a real ot-taker.For example, the two stimuli that got the highest number of ot-responses in the [a-a] vowelpattern were ga.rád and ca.gág, and each of them shares the last syllable with the realot-takers mo.rád ∼ morad-ót ‘slope’ and gág ∼ gag-ót ‘roof’.To see what post-hoc effect the final syllable might have, a binary variable namedsimilar was added to the analysis. The items that were given a value of 1 were garád,cagág, kalám, paSáS, kanód, pacóc, and cikór, due to their similarity, respectively, to morád85