Dominic Schmitz

Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf | HHU · Department of English and American Studies

Previous research on English found that fine-phonetic durational differences are modulated by lexical and morphological differences, for example, in different types of word-final /s/ (Plag et al., 2017; Schmitz et al., 2021), in homophonous free and bound (pseudo-)stems (Engemann & Plag, 2021), and in homophonous words (Lohmann, 2018). The present...

Previous research highlighted many factors influencing the variation we find in compound prominence (as in chíld care vs. home phóne), mostly related to semantics (e.g. Bell & Plag, 2012, 2013). However, the nature of this variation remains unclear and raises crucial concerns about the reality and theoretical treatment of the commonly assumed categ...

During the last decades, evidence for a male bias in generically used masculines in German has been brought forward by numerous studies applying a multitude of methodological approaches (e.g. from Braun et al., 1998 to Glim et al., 2024). That is, generically intended masculines are understood not as gender-neutral but as mainly associated with mal...

Previous research on English showed that subphonemic durational variation is modulated by lexical and morphological differences, for example, in different types of word-final /s/ (Schmitz et al., 2021), in homophonous free and bound (pseudo-)stems (Engemann & Plag, 2021), and in homophonous words (Lohmann, 2018). The present study takes research on...

Recently, substantial progress has been made in understanding the architecture of language production models. Notably, studies have found that higher level processes are still reflected in articulation. This has been shown for words, stems, affixes, and even for individual segments [1;2;3]. Particularly, word-final /s/ in English has been investiga...

Previous research identified many factors influencing compound prominence (as in chíld care vs. home phóne), chiefly related to semantics (e.g. Bell & Plag, 2012, 2013). The nature of this variation, however, is still unclear and raises fundamental concerns about the reality and theoretical treatment of the commonly assumed categorical binary stres...

Morphological structure exerts an influence on acoustic duration. But does it also influence typing duration? The present article reports an experimental study that tests for the influence of morphological structure on typing timing. It is also a first of its kind comparison between spoken and written language production within the same paradigm, w...

While psycholinguistic research has repeatedly shown that generic masculines in German come with a masculine bias, computational methods only entered this area of research very recently. The present paper shows that some assumptions made by these recent computational studies --- treating genericity as an inflectional function and computing a vector...

While research using behavioural methods has repeatedly shown that generic masculines in German come with a male bias, computational methods only entered this area of research very recently. The present paper shows that some assumptions made by these recent computational studies – treating genericity as an inflectional function and computing a vect...

Recent research has shown that seemingly homophonous elements show phonetic effects of morphological structure that are unexpected in established models of speech production in which morphology does not play a role in later stages of production [1,2]. Most prominently, the duration of word-final /s/ in English is longest in non-morphemic contexts,...

Generic masculines in German have long been thought of as gender-neutral. Take, for example, the grammatically masculine role noun Chemiker ‘chemist’, which can be used to refer to either a male chemist or, in its generic usage, to a chemist of any gender. However, despite their intendedly gender-neutral usage, mostly psycholinguistic research of t...

Grammarians have long assumed that generic masculines in German are gender-neutral (cf. Doleschal, 2002). A word like Koch ‘cook’ can be used in a generic way, i.e. to talk about a cook of any gender, and in a specific way, i.e. to talk about a male cook. However, mostly psycholinguistic research has shown that generic masculines are not comprehend...

Despite the rapidly growing body of research on sound symbolism, one issue that remains understudied is whether different types of sensory information interact in their sound symbolic effects. The experimental study reported here consisted of two tasks and focused on one such potential interaction: size associations and cuteness. First, a forced-ch...

According to grammarians, generic masculines in German are gender-neutral in their meaning (cf. Doleschal, 2002). As an example, take the grammatically masculine role noun Musiker 'musician', which can be used as specific role noun, i.e. to refer to a male musician, or as generic role noun, i.e. to refer to a musician of any gender. Psycholinguisti...

Computerlinguistische Methoden finden erst seit jüngster Zeit Anwendung in der Genderlinguistik. Da die resultierende geringe Anzahl computerlinguistischer Studien in der Genderlinguistik als ein Hinweis auf eine potenzielle Inkompatibilität der beiden Felder – Computerlinguistik und Genderlinguistik – (miss)verstanden werden kann, werde ich in mei...

Findings of previous behavioural studies suggest that the semantic nature of what is known as the ‘masculine generic’ in Modern Standard German is indeed not generic but biased towards a masculine reading. Such findings are the cause of debates within and outside linguistic research, as they run counter to the grammarian assumption that the masculi...

Recent empirical studies have highlighted the large degree of analytic flexibility in data analysis that can lead to substantially different conclusions based on the same data set. Thus, researchers have expressed their concerns that these researcher degrees of freedom might facilitate bias and can lead to claims that do not stand the test of time....

This paper presents our submission to the SIG-MORPHON 2023 task 2 of Cognitively Plausible Morphophonological Generalization in Korean. We implemented both Linear Discrim-inative Learning and Transformer models and found that the Linear Discriminative Learning model trained on a combination of corpus and experimental data showed the best performanc...

In recent years, the use of appropriate third-person pronouns has gained increased attention. In English linguistics, this attention overwhelmingly manifests in form of sociolinguistic and syntactic research, which, e.g., investigates the different types of singular they (e.g. Conrod, 2022; Han & Moulton, 2022; Konnelly et al., 2020). What is missi...

This paper presents our submission to the SIGMORPHON 2023 task 2 of Cognitively Plausible Morphophonological Generalization in Korean. We implemented both Linear Discriminative Learning and Transformer models and found that the Linear Discriminative Learning model trained on a combination of corpus and experimental data showed the best performance...

When certain sounds combined with further sensory information become meaningful, one speaks of sound symbolism. One of the most well-researched types of sound symbolism is "size sound symbolism": Some speech sounds, e.g. /i/, are associated with smallness, while other speech sounds, e.g. /a/, are associated with bigness [1, 2]. While there is a rat...

Download at: https://psyarxiv.com/62ne9 Research on sound symbolism is concerned with the non-arbitrary connection between speech sounds and different types of sensory information, and has met increased interest during the last decades. However, despite the rapidly growing body of research, one issue that remains understudied is whether different...

Recent empirical studies have highlighted the large degree of analytic flexibility in data analysis which can lead to substantially different conclusions based on the same data set. Thus, researchers have expressed their concerns that these researcher degrees of freedom might facilitate bias and can lead to claims that do not stand the test of time...

Findings of previous behavioural studies suggest that the semantic nature of what is known as the ‘masculine generic’ in Modern Standard German is indeed not generic but biased towards a masculine reading. Such findings are cause of debates within and outside linguistic research as they run counter the grammarian assumption of the masculine generic...

Während das generische Maskulinum im Deutschen traditionell als geschlechtsneutral angesehen wird (vgl. Doleschal, 2002), zeigen Studien der vergangenen Jahrzehnte, dass diese Annahme der Geschlechtsneutralität nicht zutrifft (z.B. Stahlberg & Sczesny 2001; Gygax et al. 2008; Irmen & Kurovskaja 2010; Misersky, Majid & Snijders 2019). Anstatt einer...

*Please note that this conference takes place on Twitter and consists of no more than six tweets per presenter.* Find the original thread here: https://twitter.com/dmncschmtz/status/1599667433509294080

The phenomenon of sound symbolism describes that certain sounds become meaningful when they are combined with other sensory information. One of the most prominent types of sound symbolistic patterns is the so-called “size sound symbolism”. Speech sounds with high-frequency components are associated with smallness, while speech sounds with low-frequ...

** follow the DOI link for a free open-access full-text ** The complexities of speech production, perception, and comprehension are enormous. Theoretical approaches of these complexities most recently face the challenge of accounting for findings on subphonemic differences. The aim of the present dissertation is to establish a robust foundation of...

Recent empirical studies have highlighted the large degree of analytic flexibility in data analysis which can lead to substantially different conclusions based on the same data set. Thus, researchers have expressed their concerns that these researcher degrees of freedom might facilitate bias and can lead to claims that do not stand the test of time...

Masculine generics in German have long been considered to be sex- or gender-neutral (Doleschal, 2002). Take, for example, the grammatically masculine role noun Anwalt ‘lawyer’, which can be used to refer to lawyers of any sex or gender. However, despite their usage, research of the last decades has repeatedly shown that masculine generics apparentl...

Sound symbolism is a specific form of cross-modal correspondence: Certain sounds become meaningful when they are combined with other sensory information. Prominent types of such sensory information are the rather easily measurable size and the more complex concept of cuteness. However, to date, no combined account of size and cuteness and potential...

Recent research has shown that seemingly homophonous elements show unexpected effects of morphological structure on their phonetic realisation. For example, word-final /s/ in English is longest as non-morphemic segment, shorter as suffix, and shortest as clitic, e.g. [1], [2]. Such findings highlight the relevance of the debate in language comprehe...

Findings of previous behavioural studies suggest that the semantic nature of what is called the “masculine generic” in Modern Standard German is not generic but biased towards a masculine reading. Such findings run counter the traditional assumption of masculine generic forms to be gender-neutral and are the cause of debates within and outside the...

Linguistic research has repeatedly demonstrated that masculine generics in German show a masculine bias (e.g. Gabriel et al., 2008; Gygax et al., 2008; Irmen & Kurovskaja, 2010; Koch, 2021; Misersky et al., 2019; Stahlberg & Sczesny, 2001). That is, grammatically masculine role-nouns such as Anwalt ‘lawyer’ can refer to men and women but may favour...

Findings of previous behavioural studies suggest that the semantic nature of what is called the “masculine generic” in Modern Standard German is not generic but biased towards a masculine reading. Such findings run counter the traditional assumption of masculine generic forms to be gender-neutral and are the cause of debates within and outside the...

In language comprehension research there is a debate on whether, and if so, how, subsegmental information may influence lexical access (e.g. Cho et al., 2007; Christophe et al., 2004; Goldinger, 1996). Recent research on the phonetic realisation of complex words suggests that this debate needs to be extended to the role of subphonemic detail in mor...

Recent research has shown that seemingly homophonous elements show unexpected effects of morphological structure. For example, word-final /s/ in English is longest in non-morphemic contexts, shorter with suffixes, and shortest in clitics (e.g. Plag et al., 2017; Schmitz et al., 2021). Such findings raise the question whether listeners are sensitive...

Research of the last two decades has repeatedly shown that masculine generics in German exhibit a masculine bias (e.g. Gabriel et al., 2008; Gygax et al., 2008; Irmen & Kurovskaja, 2010; Koch, 2021; Misersky et al., 2019; Stahlberg & Sczesny, 2001). That is, grammatically masculine role-nouns (e.g. Lehrer, ‘teacher’ / ‘teachers’) can refer to men a...

Recent research has shown that phonologically identical morphological entities in English show systematic differences in their phonetic realization. For example, word-final /s/ is longest in non-morphemic contexts, shorter with suffixes, and shortest in clitics (e.g. Plag et al. 2017, Schmitz et al. 2021) and the stems of morphologically complex wo...

In language comprehension research there is a debate whether (or if so, how) subsegmental information may influence lexical access (e.g. Cho et al. 2007, Christophe et al. 2004, Goldinger 1996). Recent evidence from studies investigating the phonetic realization of complex words suggest that this debate needs to be extended to the role of subphonem...

Recent research has shown that phonologically identical morphological entities in English show systematic differences in their phonetic realization. For example, stems of morphologically complex words are longer than stems of mono-morphemic words (Engemann & Plag, 2021; Seyfarth et al., 2017), and word-final /s/ is longest as a non-morphemic segmen...

Previous research suggests that different types of word-final /s/ and /z/ (e.g. non-morphemic vs. plural or clitic morpheme) in English show realisational differences in duration. However, there is disagreement on the nature of these differences, as experimental studies have provided evidence for durational differences of the opposite direction as...

Recent research has shown that phonologically identical morphological entities in English show systematic differences in their phonetic realization. For example, word-final /s/ is longest in non-morphemic contexts, shorter with suffixes, and shortest in clitics (Plag et al., 2017; Schmitz et al., 2020), while stems of morphologically complex words...

Recent research has shown that seemingly identical suffixes such as word-final /s/ in English show systematic differences in their phonetic realisations. Most recently, durational differences between different types of /s/ have been found to also hold for pseudowords: the duration of /s/ is longest in non-morphemic contexts, shorter with suffixes,...

Recent research suggests homophonous affixes show systematic differences in their phonetic realization (e.g. Ben Hedia & Plag, 2017; Plag et al., 2017; Seyfarth et al., 2017). Such findings pose a challenge for theories of speech production (e.g. Levelt & Wheeldon, 1994; Levelt et al. 1999) because it is unclear how morphological information would...

Recent research suggests homophonous affixes show systematic differences in their phonetic realization (e.g. Ben Hedia & Plag, 2017; Plag et al., 2017; Seyfarth et al., 2017). Such findings pose a challenge for theories of speech production (e.g. Levelt & Wheeldon, 1994; Levelt et al. 1999) because it is unclear how morphological information would...

Recent research has shown that seemingly identical suffixes such as word-final /s/ in English show systematic differences in their phonetic realization (e.g. Plag et al., 2017; Tomaschek et al., 2019). Most recently, Schmitz et al. (2020) have demonstrated that the durational differences between different types of /s/ also hold for nonce words: the...

Previous research suggests that homophonous affixes show systematic differences in their phonetic realization ([1], [6], [8], [7]). Such findings pose a challenge for theories of speech production ([5], [4]) as it is unclear how morphological information would come to influence articulation. One prominent example is word-final /s/ in English. Previ...

Recent research suggests homophonous affixes show systematic differences in their phonetic realization (e.g. Ben Hedia & Plag 2017, Seyfarth et al. 2017). Such findings pose a challenge for theories of speech production (e.g. Levelt et al. 1999) because it is unclear how morphological information would come to influence post-lexical stages of speec...

Recent research suggests that homophonous affixes show systematic differences in their phonetic realization (e.g. Ben Hedia & Plag 2017, Plag et al. 2017, Seyfarth et al. 2017). Such findings pose a challenge for theories of speech production (e.g. Levelt & Wheeldon 1994, Levelt et al. 1999) because it is currently unclear how morphological informa...

Recent research suggests that homophonous morphemes show systematic differences in their phonetic realization (e.g. Seyfarth et al. 2017, Plag et al. 2017). Such findings contradict basic assumptions of standard feed-forward theories of morphology-phonology interaction (e.g. Kiparsky 1982) in which morphological information is only available at the...

This study reports on a production experiment investigating acoustic vowel shortening as a function of syllable structure in German. Ten speakers were recorded producing mono- and disyllabic target words differing in vowel quality (low, mid and high vowels) and in the number of coda consonants, that is, the number of consonants following the stress...