Acesso, representação e estrutura dos substantivos flexionados em número no léxico do português Brasileiro

Abstract

This thesis articulates around the relationships that permeate the natural language speaker's lexicon, more specifically, regarding Brazilian Portuguese (BP). Hence, we seek to investigate the processes of access and representation in the mental lexicon of words inflected in number. For this study, we observed a few linguistic issues that describe the lexicon within structuralist and generative studies (CHOMSKY, 1970; BASÍLIO, 2013). Then, our goal was to present the theories of the mental lexicon in the psycholinguistic perspective, which argue that both the access to lexical items and their representation are done through morphemes, in the so-called Full Parsing Models (TAFT; FORSTER, 1975; TAFT, 1994), also presented are the models that postulate access and representation through whole words, the Full Listening Models (BUTTERWORTH, 1983), as well as the models that defend access and lexical representation through morphemes and whole words, simultaneously, depending on frequency issues, known as Dual-route Models (CARAMAZZA; LAUDANNA; ROMANI, 1988; BAAYEN, SCHREUDER, 1995; MIMOUNI; KEHAYA; JAREMA, 1998). Regarding BP, we carried out a study to investigate the access and storage of nominal forms inflected in number, aiming to provide data on how access and lexical representation in this language takes place, whether by Full Parsing, Full Listening or Dual- route. For such study, inspired by another carried out in German (SONNENSTUHL; HUTH, 2002), three experiments were carried out, in which native BP speakers were tested in Covert priming tests, in relation to regular and irregular forms. The independent variables were the type of plural and the type of prime-target relationship. The dependent variables were reaction time and number of correct answers. Regarding the results, it can be said that a significant facilitation effect between primes and targets was found under identical and plural conditions in both experiments. The results also showed a significant effect of frequency. Therefore, the more frequent forms were processed faster than the less frequent ones. As a result, priming effects showed significant interactions between frequency and plural types, suggesting a dual-route model (DUAL-ROUTE) in BP.