L2 processing of Arabic derivational morphology Suzanne Freynik, Kira Gor and Polly O’Rourke University of Maryland Te current study examined how non-native speakers process the highly productive derivational morphology of Arabic in which, in contrast to Indo- European languages, word formation involves interleaving a root and template structure. Previous research shows that native speakers of Arabic decompose morphologically complex words in lexical processing. Using cross-modal prim- ing, the current study shows that non-native speakers of Arabic (L1 English) also decompose derived forms such that there is priming between words that share a common root which is not due to semantic or phonological overlap. In spite of the typological distance, native English speakers organize their L2 Arabic lexi- cons in a manner similar to native Arabic speakers. Introduction Tere is a large body of research which shows that second language (L2) learners are less sensitive than native (L1) speakers to morphological structure. Te majority of the research on the processing of morphology by L2 learners has focused on infec- tional morphology (Babcock, Stowe, Maloof, Brovetto & Ullman, 2012; Clahsen, Felser, Neubauer, Sato & Silva, 2010; Coughlin & Tremblay, 2015; Foote, 2015; Gor & Cook, 2010; Gor & Jackson, 2013; Jacob, Fleischhauer & Clahsen, 2013; Neubauer & Clahsen, 2009; Portin, Lehtonen, Harrer, Wande, Niemi & Laine, 2008; Portin, Lehtonen, & Laine, 2007). Tere is conficting evidence regarding L2 decomposi- tion of infectional morphology. Some studies, mostly using lexical decision tasks and overt visual, auditory, and cross-modal priming (Basnight-Brown, Chen, Hua, Kostic & Feldman, 2007; Feldman, Kostić, Basnight-Brown, Filipović Đurđević & Pastizzo, 2010; Foote, 2015; Gor & Cook, 2010; Gor & Jackson, 2013; Portin, Lehtonen, Harrer, Wande, Niemi & Laine, 2008; Portin, Lehtonen & Laine, 2007; see Gor, 2010 for a review), show decomposition of regular infection by L2 learners. Others, mostly using masked priming, report no L2 decomposition of infected Te Mental Lexicon 12:1 (2017), 21–50. doi 10.1075/ml.12.1.02fre issn 1871-1340 / e-issn 1871-1375 © John Benjamins Publishing Company