The Role of Morphology and Short Vowelization in Reading Morphological Complex Words in Arabic: Evidence for the Domination of the Morpheme/Root-Based Theory in Reading Arabic

Abstract

This study investigated the reading accuracy of 59 adult highly skilled native Arabic readers in reading morphological complex Arabic words in 6 reading conditions: Isolated words with short vowelization, isolated words without short vowelization, sentences with roots with short vowelization, sentences with roots without short vowelization, sentences without priming roots with short vowelization and sentences without priming roots without short vowelization. The results indicated that roots and short vowelization were good facilitators for these adults highly skilled readers in their reading accuracy of morphological complex Arabic words. The results are discussed in the light of the role of roots as autonomous semantic entities and that the complex morphology of Arabic needs short vowelization for accuracy in reading.