Perception and Production of Clitics

University Of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst MA

Investigators

Abstract

Why are there more languages that have suffixes than ones that have prefixes? Why do languages that have both prefixes and suffixes use the suffixes more? One explanation that has been suggested is that the beginnings of words are more salient and therefore more important Yet little research has been done on the relative ability of speakers to understand and produce prefixes in contrast to suffixes. Most prior research has been conducted on English; the little research on other languages is mostly on languages related to English, such as French or Spanish. The goals of this collaborative research project are to analyze processing and production differences among clitics occurring in different positions, and to test whether any differences are the same cross-linguistically. The research targets a language that is unrelated to English and other Indo-European languages: Udi, a member of the Nakh-Daghestanian language family. It examines both affixes and the precursors of affixes, clitics. Clitics are little words that are pronounced with a host word, similar to the way English 'will' can be pronounced with the subject of a verb: he'll go. Udi is unusual in having clitics that can occur in four different positions in the verb: at the end of verbs, before the verbs, between meaningful parts of the verb, and inside the root of the verb. Psycholinguistic experiments will compare the perception/production of clitics in different positions, and compare clitics in one position with suffixes occurring in the same position. Further, the researchers will compare these aspects of Udi with the same aspects of European Portuguese, another language with both affixes and clitics that can occur in various positions. This research is significant because it will inform an interpretation of the human ability to understand words and will apply this interpretation to typological differences among languages and the historical change from clitics to affixes. Researchers will work with an Udi literacy expert and will create materials based on their research that will aid in literacy efforts.