The interpretation of isolated novel nominal compounds

The lexical decision task was used to investigate interpretative processing of isolated novel compounds (noun-noun nominals). On the basis of interpretability ratings, novel compounds were classified as being of either high or low interpretability. In a lexical decision task in which novel compounds functioned as nonwords, a significant interference effect was found for compounds of high interpretability. In a naming task, no differences were found between the two types of novel compounds, but lexicalized compounds resulted in shorter latencies than did novel compounds. Novel compounds were also shown to be interpreted under conditions unfavorable to morphological decomposition, suggesting that the interpretation process is beyond strategic control by the subject. Equal semantic priming effects were obtained for members of established semantic categories and nouns of highly interpretable compounds. Interpretative processes dealing with a limited set of basic semantic relations and analogy with lexicalized compounds are discussed.