Empirical research on word classes and collocations in Hungarian
Part 1
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18349/MagyarNyelv.2025.3.257Keywords:
word class, noun, verb, collocation, lexical decision taskAbstract
There are several approaches to word classes and collocations in both grammar and corpus linguistics. This paper examines word class affiliation and collocability in terms of speakers’ knowledge. Our main question is the extent to which collocability and word class identity can link the mental representations of words to one another. To answer this question, we conducted lexical decision tasks with native speakers of Hungarian. The subjects were asked to decide as quickly as possible whether they saw an existing noun, an existing verb, or a nonword. The study was aimed at measuring the priming effect of words that appear before nouns and verbs in Hungarian, are related in collocation, and/or have the same word class. In our experiment, neither lexicality nor collocation showed a main effect on priming. However, there was a significant difference in reaction time between the rejection of nonwords and the recognition of real words, with nonwords being processed far more slowly than real words.
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Copyright (c) 2025 László Palágyi, Andrea Deme
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