Decomposition of Morphologically Complex Words in L1 and L2: Evidence from Masked and Cross-Modal Priming Experiments of a Korean Verbal Suffix

This paper reports results from two types of priming experiments (i.e., masked and cross-modal priming experiments) which compare Chinese L2 learners’ morphological processing of a Korean verbal suffix –ko with adult native speakers of Korean. L1/L2 differences were found in both the masked and cross-modal priming experiments: Full priming effects were found in the masked priming experiment and partial priming effects in the cross-modal priming experiment in L1, while weak or no priming effects were found in both types of priming experiments of L2. These findings indicate that L2 learners of Korean are less sensitive to morphological structure than native speakers and dependent on the lexical storage of the full form. This study also provided evidence for the non-difference between the masked priming and the cross-modal priming experiments both in L1 and L2.