In linguistics, morphology is the study of words, their construction and how they are formed, and their relationship to other words in the same language. Languages vary widely in the degree to which words can be analyzed into word elements. 

Studies in other languages in the past have suggested that the morphological processing during reading occurs only toward the end of junior-high (intermediate) school – grades seven to nine, at the age of 12 to 15. 

We Israelis always thought Hebrew was a special language. Experts at the University of Haifa have now proved that it is. The Haifa team headed by Prof. Tali Bitan, an expert in language and brain plasticity at the university’s psychology department and Institute of Information Processing and Decisionmaking, found that Hebrew-speaking children can undertake the morphological processing of a word that in Hebrew entails identifying the root and the morphological template when reading from as early as seven or eight years. 

The research team also included research student Bechor Barouch, Dr. Yael Weiss, and Prof. Tami Katzir, head of the university’s Safra Brain Research Center for the Study of Learning Disabilities. They published their findings in the journal Neuroscience under the title “Neural Processing of Morphology During Reading in Children.” 

The researchers used an fMRI (functional MRI) imaging device to examine brain activity in children involved in the morphological processing of words during reading. This is the first study to use brain imaging of children reading words in Hebrew. The participants were 26 children from the second/third and fifth/sixth grades. 

The fact that this ability develops earlier than we previously assumed has numerous implications for the way young children learn to read. The team found that the ability to process a word morphologically offers an advantage because it makes it possible for children to understand the meaning of an unfamiliar word by identifying its root and template. 

Children use different areas of the brain than adults for processing. However, researchers now recognize that different languages are processed differently in the brain. In addition, the processing itself shapes the brain network responsible for reading differently; in other words, the brain network of Hebrew readers will differ from that of English readers.

Bitan explained that Hebrew is a morphologically rich language, where most words consist of a root and a template (a verbal conjugation or nominal pattern). Moreover, Hebrew is written in two versions: “pointed,” which shows vowel signs, and “unpointed,” where many vowels are not shown and must be “guessed” by the reader.

“These unique characteristics of the Hebrew language and orthography [the conventional spelling system of a language] allow us to examine the way the brain changes when processing word morphology and how even young children manage to perform tasks that seem complicated to people who learn Hebrew as adults,” Bitan continued. 

The pupils were presented with some Hebrew words that have a clear root and template and other words (such as historically loanwords – a word adopted from a foreign language with little or no modification – from other languages) that do not have a root and template. The words were presented both with and without pointing. The children’s brain activity while reading the words was then compared to adults reading the same words, as measured in an earlier study. 

The study found a difference in brain activity between the words with a root and template and those without. In other words, the children showed an ability to engage in the morphological processing of the word.

Perhaps surprisingly, it was found that the areas of the brain involved in the morphological processing of words differ between children and adults. Adults use the left inferior frontal gyrus pars opercularis and pars triangularis of the brain, which are also involved in processing the sound of words. The children, however, used areas further to the back of the brain – the bilateral anterior superior temporal gyri and anterior, middle temporal gyri. These areas are associated with the processing of the meaning of words.

The study also found that the segmentation of a word into its root and template occurs mainly in unpointed words in adults, so this compensated for the lack of information present in this orthographic form. Among children, however, this segmentation was seen in pointed words; the pointing evidently assists in identifying the root and pattern.

Bitan concluded that the use of different parts of the brain in adults and children may be associated with the way the structure of words is learned. “It is possible that children mainly learn the root of a word through its meaning, whereas adults mainly process it through its sound.”

If this is true, this could have ramifications for Hebrew language learning. For example, perhaps children should be taught from an early age that words include roots, with an emphasis on meaning. Adults who learn Hebrew as a new language, by contrast, could place a greater emphasis on similarities in sound. The research findings also highlight the importance of using pointed Hebrew with youngsters.