The effects of morphology and word length on the reading of Hebrew nominals

This article investigated the effects of two specific Hebrew nominal word structures and word length, on the latency and accuracy of grade school children's reading of words. For this study, three-, four- and five-letter words of the feminine nominal derivative structure and the feminine nominal inflectional structure, at three different grade levels, were used. The study also differentiated between an additional vocalized consonant and the addition of a vowel letter. The participants, 150 native monolingual Hebrew speakers in grades two, four and six, were asked to read vocalized nouns. The paper reports and analyzes the differences in the reading of the two morphological structures and word lengths to draw conclusions about their effects on reading performance. The results indicated that inflections took longer to read and elicited more correct responses than derivations. For derivations with the progression of grade level, latency becomes shorter and the number of correct responses increases. For inflections with the progression of grade level, latency becomes longer but the number of correct responses increases. With the addition of a consonant at all grade levels, latency becomes longer. For accuracy, there were differential results for the different word lengths in the different grades. With the addition of a vowel letter, accuracy increased in all the grade levels. Latency, for the two word lengths, showed differential results in the different grades. A hypothesis on reading development is suggested based on the language-specific characteristics of Hebrew morphology and the double vowel system of Hebrew.