Call for Papers - Workshop (IMM22)

Words in the Mind: Morphological Processing in Children and Older Adults

22nd International Morphology Meeting (IMM) - https://nytud.hu/en/event/22nd-international-morphology-meeting-2

28–31 May 2026 

Venue: Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics (Benczúr utca 33 - Budapest, Hungary) 

Workshop Convenors: 

Alina Villalva (University of Lisbon, The Word Lab)

Carina Pinto (Politécnico de Leiria, Politécnico de Setúbal, CLUL, The Word Lab)

Rafael Minussi (UNIFESP, LabLinC, The Word Lab)

Workshop Description

Morphology plays a central role in language structure, yet its processing remains less explored than phonological, syntactic, or semantic processing and is often overlooked in clinical and educational models. Investigating morphological processing requires fine-grained analysis essential for understanding how morphology supports language acquisition and use, and how it may aid populations with atypical linguistic profiles.

While most studies concentrate on typically developing adults, research on children already reveals how morphology interacts with lexical development. For instance, recent findings in European Portuguese show that children process denominal and deverbal agent nouns more quickly than simplex agent nouns—whereas adults display the opposite pattern. These results suggest that children, whose lexicons are still developing, may rely more on morphological cues for word recognition and comprehension.

Age-related conditions or later-life language pathologies may likewise reveal distinctive morphological processing patterns, highlighting the need for research spanning the entire lifespan.

Scope and Topics

We invite abstracts exploring morphological processing across the lifespan, with particular attention to children and older adults, including typical and atypical development.

Topics may include (but are not limited to):

• Morphological issues such as regular vs. irregular inflection, morphological complexity, derivation vs. inflection.
• Experimental and innovative assessment methodologies.
• Clinical and educational applications: diagnosis, intervention, and morphology-based didactic programmes.
• Studies addressing developmental language disorder (DLD), dyslexia, neurological conditions, and other profiles affecting language.

Approaches from linguistics, clinical linguistics, psycholinguistics, speech and language therapy, neurolinguistics, education, and special education are welcome.

The workshop will feature 20-minute talks followed by a 10-minute discussion and a poster session.

Please note that any single author can be involved in at most two presentations, and this restriction applies to the whole of the event (IMM22), including the workshops

Submission Details

Please note that any single author can be involved in at most two presentations, and this restriction applies to the whole of the event (IMM22), including the workshops

• Abstracts: max. 300 words – introduction, methodology & results (excluding references)
• Format: PDF or Word, anonymised
• Language: English
• Deadline: 31 December 2025
• Notification of acceptance: 31 January 2026
• Submission link: 

All questions about submission should be emailed to talktothewordlab@gmail.com