Lemma frequency affects the duration of homographic noun/verb conversion “homophones.” Free

This paper reports empirical evidence for an effect of lemma frequency on the duration of homographic Noun-Verb homophones in spontaneous speech, e.g., cut(N) / cut(V). In previous research on effects of lemma frequency, these words were not investigated due to a focus on heterographic homophones (e.g., Gahl 2008). However, testing the frequency hypothesis on Noun/Verb homophones is of great theoretical relevance, as their representational status is especially controversial in both linguistic as well as psycholinguistic models of the mental lexicon. A mixed-effects analysis of speech data from the Buckeye corpus yields the result that the more frequent member of a Noun/Verb pair is pronounced with shorter duration, relative to its low-frequency twin. Generally speaking, this finding supports models of the mental lexicon in which entries are specified for syntactic category. Furthermore, this outcome is at odds with an account of “complete frequency inheritance” across homophones, as predicted by the Levelt production model. A separate analysis of the subsample of low-frequency words was carried out in order to further investigate possible frequency inheritance effects, as under an assumption of “partial inheritance.” No such effects were found. Taken together, the findings can be best accounted for in a model that assumes completely separate lexical representations for homophonous words.