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The case of the neglected alphasyllabary: Orthographic processing in Devanagari

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 August 2012

Chaitra Rao ,
Shweta Soni  and
Nandini Chatterjee Singh
Chaitra Rao
Affiliation:
National Brain Research Centre, NH-8, Nainwal Mode, Manesar –122050, India. chaitlee@gmail.comshwetanbrc@gmail.comnandini@nbrc.ac.inhttp://www.nbrc.ac.in/faculty/nandini/mindinyourlanguage.blogspot.com
Shweta Soni
Affiliation:
National Brain Research Centre, NH-8, Nainwal Mode, Manesar –122050, India. chaitlee@gmail.comshwetanbrc@gmail.comnandini@nbrc.ac.inhttp://www.nbrc.ac.in/faculty/nandini/mindinyourlanguage.blogspot.com
Nandini Chatterjee Singh
Affiliation:
National Brain Research Centre, NH-8, Nainwal Mode, Manesar –122050, India. chaitlee@gmail.comshwetanbrc@gmail.comnandini@nbrc.ac.inhttp://www.nbrc.ac.in/faculty/nandini/mindinyourlanguage.blogspot.com
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Abstract

We applaud Ram Frost for highlighting the need for multicultural perspectives while developing universal models of visual word recognition. We second Frost's proposal that factors like lexical morphology should be incorporated besides purely orthographic features in modeling word recognition. In support, we provide fresh evidence from Hindi (written in Devanagari), an example of hitherto under-represented alphasyllabic orthographies, in which flexible encoding of akṣara (character) position is constrained by the morphological structure of words.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 35 , Issue 5 , October 2012 , pp. 302 - 303
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012 

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