Word-Formation Rules in Slovenian Agentive Deverbal Nominalization: A Psycholinguistic Study Based on Pseudo-Words

Abstract

In this paper we investigate the status of various word-formation rules relating to the derivation of the agentive deverbal nominalization in Slovenian by examining the speakers' perception of pseudo-words that violate these rules. The experiment, based on Manouilidou's (2007) investigation of Modern Greek, includes 20 native speakers of Slovenian. The results show that, contrary to Greek speakers, native speakers of Slovenian make a clear line between pseudo-words that violate word-formation rules of Slovenian and words that do not, but that they do not differentiate between pseudo-words with different types of violations, equally rejecting all pseudo words with violations.