Interaction of morphological structure and prefix transparency in the processing of Bulgarian aspectual verb forms

This study investigates the processing of polymorphemic words in a highly inflected language, Bulgarian. The roles of semantic transparency, aspect, and bound or free root status in the recognition of aspectual verb forms were probed in the visual modality in a simple lexical decision and a masked priming experiment at a short SOA. Results from the two experiments yielded effects of semantic transparency and morphological complexity, demonstrating that both factors influence the recognition of prefixed aspectual forms in Bulgarian and pointing toward different access procedures. In contrast, the status of the root did not influence recognition patterns, suggesting that free-standing and bound roots are equivalent lexical units of access and representation in Bulgarian. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science (USA).