Bilingual Reading of Compound Words

The present study investigated whether bilingual readers activate constituents of compound words in one language while processing compound words in the other language via decomposition. Two experiments using a lexical decision task were conducted with adult Korean-English bilingual readers. In Experiment 1, the lexical decision of real English compound words was more accurate when the translated compounds (the combination of the translation equivalents of the constituents) in Korean (the nontarget language) were real words than when they were nonwords. In Experiment 2, when the frequency of the second constituents of compound words in English (the target language) was manipulated, the effect of lexical status of the translated compounds was greater on the compounds with high-frequency second constituents than on those with low-frequency second constituents in the target language. Together, these results provided evidence for morphological decomposition and cross-language activation in bilingual reading of compound words.     

Prosody-assisted head-driven access to spoken German compounds

Auditory processing of German 2-noun compound words was investigated with 328 participants in 4 experiments by monitoring semantic priming effects of the left constituents of the compound words. The authors demonstrated that there is no primacy of the left constituents in accessing auditorily presented German compound words in the mental lexicon. A clear priming effect of left constituents occurred only for compound words with a transparent right constituent that is the head of compound words in Germanic languages. The data suggest that the access to German compounds in the auditory domain involves 2 temporally overlapping routes: direct and decompositional. The prosodic structure (i.e., the duration) of the first morphemes of compound words appears to be a determining factor for activation of the decompositional route.     

Compound fracture: the role of semantic transparency and morphological headedness

This paper explores the role of semantic transparency in the representation and processing of English compounds. We focus on the question of whether semantic transparency is best viewed as a property of the entire multimorphemic string or as a property of constituent morphemes. Accordingly, we investigated the processing of English compound nouns that were categorized in terms of the semantic transparency of each of their constituents. Fully transparent such as bedroom are those in which the meanings of each of the constituents are transparently represented in the meaning of the compound as a whole. These compounds were contrasted with compounds such as strawberry, in which only the second constituent is semantically transparent, jailbird, in which only the first constituent is transparent, and hogwash, in which neither constituent is semantically transparent. We propose that significant insights can be achieved through such analysis of the transparency of individual morphemes. The two experiments that we report present evidence that both semantically transparent compounds and semantically opaque compounds show morphological constituency. The semantic transparency of the morphological head (the second constituent in a morphologically right-headed language such as English) was found to play a significant role in overall lexical decision latencies, in patterns of decomposition, and in the effects of stimulus repetition within the experiment.     

Frequency effects in the processing of lexicalized and novel nominal compounds

The processing of lexicalized and novel noun-noun compounds of high interpretability was investigated. In Experiment 1, the familiarity of the lexicalized compounds had a significant effect on lexical decision times, but no frequency effects were observed for the constituent nouns. In Experiment 2, a frequency effect was found for the first noun of novel compounds, but not for the second noun. This result was replicated in Experiment 3 with different types of nonwords. A negative word frequency effect for the first noun was found in Experiment 4 in which the novel compounds functioned as nonwords. A frequency effect for the first noun was also observed in Experiment 5, in which a semantic classification task was used. Results point to a decomposition second model according to which access is initially based on the whole compound. If this is unsuccessful the compound will be decomposed and the constituent nouns will be processed separately. It is argued that in novel compounds, nouns are processed sequentially, and different orders of processing are discussed.     

Facilitating morphosyntactic and semantic prediction among second language speakers of German

Using two visual priming experiments, the present study investigates whether presenting facilitative semantic (i.e. colour) and morphosyntactic (i.e. grammatical gender) information in a prime image prior to reading a target sentence facilitates naming of a sentence-final target image among L1 German and L1 English-L2 German speakers. In Experiment 1, L1 and L2 German speakers used both semantic and gender cues to predict the sentence-final target image. In Experiment 2, a new group of L2 German speakers used gender cues to predict, but this effect was stronger when gender information was provided via a gender-marked indefinite article and adjective in the prime, than when the prime contained only the gender-marked article. These results suggest that if L2 speakers are able to overcome unstable and often inaccurate L2 gender assignment, they can use gender cues in a native-like manner for prediction, but that multiple gender-marked cues may be necessary for such prediction to occur.     

Conflict and surrender during sentence processing: an ERP study of syntax-semantics interaction

Recent ERP studies report that implausible verb-argument combinations can elicit a centro-parietal P600 effect (e.g., "The hearty meal was devouring …"; Kim & Osterhout, 2005). Such eliciting conditions do not involve outright syntactic anomaly, deviating from previous reports of P600. Kim and Osterhout (2005) attributed such P600 effects to structural reprocessing that occurs when syntactic cues fail to support a semantically attractive interpretation ('meal' as the Agent of 'devouring') and the syntactic cues are overwhelmed; the sentence is therefore perceived as syntactically ill-formed. The current study replicated such findings and also found that altering the syntactic cues in such situations of syntax-semantics conflict (e.g., "The hearty meal would devour …") affects the conflict's outcome. P600s were eliminated when sentences contained syntactic cues that required multiple morphosyntactic steps to "repair". These sentences elicited a broad, left-anterior negativity at 300-600ms (LAN). We interpret the reduction in P600 amplitude in terms of "resistance" of syntactic cues to reprocessing. We speculate that the LAN may be generated by difficulty retrieving an analysis that satisfies both syntactic and semantic cues, which results when syntactic cues are strong enough to resist opposing semantic cues. This pattern of effects is consistent with partially independent but highly interactive syntactic and semantic processing streams, which often operate collaboratively but can compete for influence over interpretation.     

The role of semantic transparency in the processing of English compound words

Experiment 1 examined whether the semantic transparency of an English unspaced compound word affected how long it took to process it in reading. Three types of opaque words were each compared with a matched set of transparent words (i.e. matched on the length and frequency of the constituents and the frequency of the word as a whole). Two sets of the opaque words were partially opaque: either the first constituent was not related to the meaning of the compound (opaque‐transparent) or the second constituent was not related to the meaning of the compound (transparent‐opaque). In the third set (opaque‐opaque), neither constituent was related to the meaning of the compound. For all three sets, there was no significant difference between the opaque and the transparent words on any eye‐movement measure. This replicates an earlier finding with Finnish compound words ( Pollatsek & Hyönä, 2005 ) and indicates that, although there is now abundant evidence that the component constituents play a role in the encoding of compound words, the meaning of the compound word is not constructed from the parts, at least for compound words for which a lexical entry exists. Experiment 2 used the same compounds but with a space between the constituents. This presentation resulted in a transparency effect, indicating that when an assembly route is ‘forced’, transparency does play a role.     

Is Milkman a superhero like Batman? Constituent morphological priming in compound words

In the present study, we examined morphological decomposition of Basque compound words in a series of masked priming lexical decision experiments. In Experiment 1, Basque compound words could be briefly preceded by other compounds that shared either the first or second constituent, or by unrelated noncompound words. Results showed a significant priming effect for words that shared a constituent, independently of its position. In Experiment 2, compound words were preceded by other compound words that shared one of their constituents, but in a different lexeme position (e.g., the first constituent of the compound that acted as a prime was the second constituent of the compound that acted as a target). Results again showed a constituent priming effect (i.e., location in the string is not necessary for priming to occur). In Experiment 3, we demonstrated that these priming effects were not due to mere form overlap: pairs of noncompound words that shared either the beginning or the ending chunk did not produce a priming effect. Taken together, the present results converge with previous data on orthographic/morphological priming and provide evidence favouring early morphological decomposition.     

言语产生中双词素词的语音编码

采用同音判断和音节监控方法 ,考察言语产生中双词素词语音激活的特点。选用以偏正结构的双词素词为名称的图片和与双词素词中首尾两个词素同音的两组探测字作为实验材料 ,探测字在图片呈现后 5 0毫秒 (实验一 ) ,或图片呈现前 130 0毫秒 (实验二 )出现 ,要求被试判断出现的字是否与图片名称中任何一个词素同音。实验结果与绝大部分言语产生理论的预期相反 ,对图片名称第一词素的反应慢于第二词素。考虑到首尾两个词素对整词意义贡献的差别 ,作者把实验结果解释为词素意义对语音激活的作用 :第二词素的语义重要性决定了对应音节激活的快速性 ,双词素词中词素音位激活的速度和时间性受词义和词素意义激活程度的影响 ,而不完全取决于词素发音的序列性。实验不支持音位编码从左到右、序列进行的观点     

Processing novel compounds: Evidence for interactive meaning activation of ambiguous nouns

In three experiments, the meaning activation of ambiguous nouns in novel nominal compounds was investigated. Ambiguous nouns were unbalanced homographs occurring as the second members of the compound. Meaningful interpretations of the compounds were based on either the dominant or the subordinate meaning of the ambiguous noun. In Experiment 1, visually presented novel compounds serving as primes were followed at varying intervals by targets associatively related to distinct meanings of the ambiguous noun. In a lexical decision task, facilitation effects were found only for targets related to the meaning that was relevant for the interpretation of the compound. Experiment 2 showed that interactive activation could not be attributed to differences in semantic relatedness between the first members of compounds and targets. Experiment 3 demonstrated equal intralexical relatedness between members for both types of compounds. It is proposed that interactive activation may facilitate the interpretation of the novel compound. Compatible meaning aspects of the nouns may become more strongly activated, and incompatible meaning aspects may not become activated. The selection of meaning aspects relevant for interpretation would thereby be simplified.     

The role of analogy in the interpretation of novel compounds

It was investigated whether the on-line interpretative processing of novel nominal compounds is affected by analogous lexicalized compounds. In Experiment 1, novel compounds were presented as nonwords in a lexical decision task. Constituent nouns of novel compounds were of high or low productivity as measured by the number of lexicalized compounds of which they were part. Effects of productivity and of compound interpretability on decision latencies were found to be additive, suggesting that the activated lexicalized compounds do not contribute to the interpretation of novel compounds. In Experiment 2, a semantic priming paradigm was used in a lexical decision task. Lexicalized compounds were presented as targets and novel compounds as primes. Second nouns of lexicalized and novel compounds were identical and first nouns of the two types of compounds were semantically related. Target compounds differed in frequency. Equal priming effects were obtained for high- and low-frequency target compounds, indicating that novel compounds do not activate more strongly the most similar lexicalized compound. The role of analogous interpretative processing is considered in the context of alternative models for the interpretation of novel compounds.     

Differences in the perception and time course of syntactic and semantic violations

A reading time and an ERP experiment conducted in Italian investigated the parser's responses to a syntactic violation (subject-verb number agreement) and to a semantic violation (subject-verb selectional restriction), examining the time course of comprehension processes until sentence end. The reading-time data showed that the syntactic violation was detected earlier than the semantic one and that the two violations differed in the time-course. The ERP data fully supported the reading time data: Syntactic anomalies elicited a left anterior negativity (LAN) and a P600. Semantic anomalies elicited a N400 centred on the parietal sites which started 90 ms later (latency 430 ms) than the LAN. Furthermore, the N400 evoked by the words that followed the target word continued and increased until sentence end. The results are discussed with respect to the hypotheses that the parser constructs distinct syntactic and semantic analyses of a sentence and that this characteristic holds cross-linguistically. The appropriateness of different methodologies to the study of sentence processing is also evaluated.     

Processing Gapped Verbs

The time course was investigated of the processing of “missing” verbs in gapping constructions, such as John ate the hamburger, and Bill __ the hotdog. Native speakers of Dutch silently read Dutch sentences with and without gapping while their EEG was recorded. A left anterior negativity (LAN) was found at the first possible position at which the gapped verb could be detected, at least, for in participants who performed poorly in an end-of-sentence acceptability judgment task. This suggests that some readers do not anticipate the gapped verb, but infer the gapped verb in a bottom-up fashion, resulting in a LAN. Second, a P600 effect was observed for gapping versus no-gapping conditions, the early part of which was unaffected by plausibility. This suggests that the semantic and syntactic integration of a gapped verb is a relatively late process, and involves mechanisms similar to integrating a wh-phrase object with its verb.     

Evidence for morphological composition at the form level in speech production

We investigated in two picture–word-interference experiments whether there is evidence for composition during compound production (Experiment 1). In Experiment 2, we tried to determine the level at which composition takes place. In Experiment 1, shared morphemes between distractor and target (HANDTASCHE, handbag) sped up naming regardless of category membership: semantically opaque (Plaudertasche, chatterbox) and semantically transparent distractors (Reisetasche, travelling bag) facilitated picture naming to a comparable degree. In Experiment 2, targets (BROTMESSER, bread knife) were combined with a simple word distractor (Kuchen, cake) categorically related to a target compound constituent but not related to the compound as a whole. This target was further paired with a categorically related compound distractor (Kochlöffel, wooden spoon). The simple word distractor was also paired with a categorically related compound constituent (BROT, bread). Whenever distractor (e.g., Kochlöffel, Kuchen) and target (BROTMESSER, BROT, respectively) were categorically related, semantic inhibition was observed. Distractors (e.g., Kuchen) related to only one compound constituent did not affect compound production. Taken together, our results indicate that during compound production a single lemma node is activated and that morphological composition takes place at the form level of representation. Current lexical selection mechanisms in language production models are not supported by these data.     

The Role of Simple Semantics in the Process of Artificial Grammar Learning

This study investigated the effect of semantic information on artificial grammar learning (AGL). Recursive grammars of different complexity levels (regular language, mirror language, copy language) were investigated in a series of AGL experiments. In the with-semantics condition, participants acquired semantic information prior to the AGL experiment; in the without-semantics control condition, participants did not receive semantic information. It was hypothesized that semantics would generally facilitate grammar acquisition and that the learning benefit in the with-semantics conditions would increase with increasing grammar complexity. Experiment 1 showed learning effects for all grammars but no performance difference between conditions. Experiment 2 replicated the absence of a semantic benefit for all grammars even though semantic information was more prominent during grammar acquisition as compared to Experiment 1. Thus, we did not find evidence for the idea that semantics facilitates grammar acquisition, which seems to support the view of an independent syntactic processing component.     

Why a "word order difference" is not always a "word order" difference: a reply to Weyerts,Penke, Münte,Heinze, and Clahsen

We present evidence that the supposed processing advantage for an SV_finO word order over an SOV_fin word order in German argued for by Weyerts, Penke, Münte, Heinze, and Clahsen (2002) is supported by neither experimental nor theoretical evidence. Specifically, we show (a) that the frontocentral negativity for an SOV_fin in comparison to an SV_finO word order in Weyerts et al.'s Experiments 2 and 3 is reducible to more general differences in the electrophysiological responses elicited by nouns versus verbs in a sentence context, and (b) that the P600 difference between the two word orders in Experiment 2, as well as the reading time differences in Experiment 1, result from the fact that the two supposedly ungrammatical conditions actually differ in their degree of ill-formedness. We conclude that there is no evidence for a processing disadvantage for SOV_fin, thus reconciling Weyerts et al.'s results on German sentence processing with the grammatical regularities of German.     

Semantic involvement in the lexical and sentence processing of Japanese kanji

This study examined how skilled Japanese readers activate semantic information when reading kanji compound words at both the lexical and sentence levels. Experiment 1 used a lexical decision task for two-kanji compound words and nonwords. When nonwords were composed of kanji that were semantically similar to the kanji of real words, reaction times were longer and error rates were higher than when nonwords had kanji that were not semantically similar. Experiment 2 used a proofreading task (detection of kanji miscombinations) for the same two-kanji compound words and nonwords at the sentence level. In this task, semantically similar nonwords were detected faster than dissimilar nonwords, but error rates were much higher for the semantically similar nonwords. Experiment 3 used a semantic decision task for sentences with the same two-kanji compound words and nonwords. It took longer to detect semantically similar nonwords than dissimilar nonwords. This indicates that semantic involvement in the processing of Japanese kanji produces different effects, depending on whether this processing is done at the lexical or sentence level, which in turn is related to where the reader's attention lies.     

Effects of semantic context in the naming of pictures and words

Two experiments investigated whether lexical retrieval for speaking can be characterized as a competitive process by assessing the effects of semantic context on picture and word naming in German. In Experiment 1 we demonstrated that pictures are named slower in the context of same-category items than in the context of items from various semantic categories, replicating findings by Kroll and Stewart (Journal of Memory and Language, 33 (1994) 149). In Experiment 2 we used words instead of pictures. Participants either named the words in the context of same- or different-category items, or produced the words together with their corresponding determiner. While in the former condition words were named faster in the context of same-category items than of different-category items, the opposite pattern was obtained for the latter condition. These findings confirm the claim that the interfering effect of semantic context reflects competition in the retrieval of lexical entries in speaking.     

Task influences on the production and comprehension of compound words

Studies of compound word processing have revealed effects of the compound’s constituents in a wide variety of word production and comprehension tasks. Surprisingly, effects of the compound’s constituents were not found in a recent word production study using the picture-naming task. Here, we examined whether these contrasting constituent effects reflect methodological differences or whether they reflect the influence of task-specific characteristics on compound processing. A large set of compounds was used to elicit picture-naming latencies in Experiment 1 and visual lexical decision latencies in Experiment 2. Regression analyses revealed surface frequency effects in picture naming and lexical decision and constituent effects only in lexical decision. These results rule out methodological differences as the basis for the contrasting constituent effects observed between the various tasks and imply that constituent effects are best understood as arising out of task-specific characteristics.