Abstract

Previous studies on syllable frequency effect on visual recognition of Korean words have reported mixed results depending on their part of speech, morphological form (simple vs. inflected form), and measures of syllable frequency (e.g., type or token frequency). The present study reanalyzed lexical decision data from 23,173 words in three datasets (Yi et al., 2017; Kim et al., 2018; Kim et al., 2020). In eight independent hierarchical regression models, four frequency measures were employed for the orthographic and phonological first syllable, respectively. The first syllable frequency was measured in terms of type or token, or whether the length of syllabic neighbors was considered or not. The results showed robust facilitative effects of first syllable frequency in all forms of verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, while only in inflected form for nouns. The facilitative effects of first syllable frequency were demonstrated regardless of frequency measure, both in orthographic and phonological syllable frequency. This facilitative effect of syllable frequency could be due to the Korean writing system, which provides visually distinct syllabic boundaries, resulting in direct access to the mental lexicon via the orthographic route. The null effect of the syllable frequency in noun words could be attributed to their greater number of higher frequency syllabic neighbors (HFSN), compared to the other three categories. Thus, these results suggest that both the orthographic and phonological representation of a syllable plays an important role in visual word recognition.