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Three experiments using a spelling error detection task investigated the extent to which morphemes and pseudomorphemes affect word processing. We compared the processing of transparent compound words (e.g., doorbell), pseudocompound words (e.g., carpet), and matched control words (e.g., tomato). In half of the compound and pseudocompound words, spelling errors were created by transposing adjacent letters and in half of the control words, errors were created by transposing letters at the same location as the matched compound or pseudocompound words. Correctly spelled compound words were more easily processed than matched control words, but this advantage was removed when letter transpositions were introduced at the morpheme boundary. In contrast, misspelled pseudocompound words showed a processing deficit relative to their matched control words when letter transpositions were introduced at the (pseudo)morpheme boundary. The results strongly suggest that morphological processing is attempted obligatorily when the orthography indicates that morphological structure is present. However, the outcomes of the morphological processing attempts are different for compounds and pseudocompounds, as might be expected, given that only the compounds have a morphological structure that matches the structure suggested by the orthography. The findings reflect 2 effects: an orthographic effect that is facilitatory and not sensitive to morphological structure of the whole word, and a morphemic effect that is facilitatory for compounds but inhibitory for pseudocompounds.

The authors examined manifest anxiety and perceptions of English and French language competence among Anglophone (n = 35), Francophone (n = 29), and Mixed-heritage (n = 34) elementary education (60%) and secondary education (40%) students (80% female) in their second, third, or fourth year of study at the Faculte Saint Jean (University of Alberta). Participants assessed their language competence differently in English and French. Francophone and Mixed-heritage students felt equally competent in the two languages, but Anglophone students reported much higher language competence in English. Manifest anxiety and self-assessments of language competence were related only among the Anglophone group, with high levels of manifest anxiety associated with both low self-assessments of French language competence and high self-assessments of English language competence--the two being correlated with each other. (Contains 4 tables and 6 notes.)

We used a typing task to measure the written production of compounds, pseudocompounds, and monomorphemic words on a letter-by-letter basis to determine whether written production (as measured by interletter typing speed) was affected by morphemic structure and semantic transparency of the constituents. Semantic transparency was analyzed using a dichotomous classification (opaque vs. transparent) as well as participant ratings. Our results indicate that written production is sensitive to morphemic structure and to the semantic transparency of the first constituent.

Recent research shows that the judged likelihood of properties of modified nouns ("baby ducks have webbed feet") is reduced relative to judgments for unmodified nouns ("ducks have webbed feet"). This modification effect has been taken as evidence both for and against the idea that combined concepts automatically inherit properties from their constituent concepts. Experiments 1 and 2 replicate this effect and demonstrate a reversed modification effect with false properties. That is, false properties are judged more likely with modification (e.g., "purple candles have teeth" is judged more likely than "candles have teeth"). These experiments also show that properties that are neither generically true nor false are unaffected by modification. Experiments 3 and 4 manipulate participants' expectation of contrast by showing modified and unmodified nouns that either match or mismatch in terms of a property and show that the judged likelihood of properties depends on the expectations of contrast set up by the manipulation. These results show that the modification effect is primarily driven by participants' understanding of the relation of subcategories to categories, rather than by the features of the concepts being combined, suggesting that the process of property attribution in combined concepts is strongly affected by pragmatic factors and is less strongly dependent on conceptual content than most theories of conceptual combination would suggest.

Six lexical decision experiments were conducted to examine the influence of complex structure on the processing speed of English compounds. All experiments revealed that semantically transparent compounds (e.g., "rosebud") were processed more quickly than matched monomorphemic words (e.g., "giraffe"). Opaque compounds (e.g., "hogwash") were also processed more quickly than monomorphemic words. However, when the experimental materials and/or procedure encouraged decomposition/integration, this advantage disappeared. This research suggests that morphological decomposition initiated by the existence of complex structure results in the availability of both the lexical and semantic representations of compound constituents, regardless of whether the compounds are transparent or opaque, and that meaning composition is attempted. This meaning composition further speeds up transparent compound processing beyond lexical facilitation but slows down opaque compound processing because the computed meaning for opaque compounds conflicts with the retrieved meaning. (Contains 7 tables.)

Past research has found that the judged likelihood of properties of modified nouns (baby ducks have webbed feet) is reduced relative to unmodified nouns (ducks have webbed feet). Experiments 1-3 replicate the modification effect and demonstrate that this effect is obtained when participants make dichotomous decisions about the truth of such statements. In addition, measures of processing time indicate that properties are not immediately inherited during the composition process, but rather must be inferred. Experiments 2-3 included statements containing content-free modifiers (chonk ducks have webbed feet) to examine the extent to which the modification effect is influenced by the content of the modifier and knowledge about the combined concepts. Taken together, these results argue in favor of an inferential process that operates at the level of logical forms or structures, which are content-free, as well as operating on the content of the head noun category. In this framework, properties are inferred after a structural interpretation has been derived. (Contains 3 tables.)

Although previous research has suggested that the processing of compound words involves the integration of the constituents, not much is known about what integration entails. Three experiments suggest that integration draws on both linguistic and conceptual knowledge about the constituents and the compound word; ease of processing (as reflected by RT in a sense/nonsense judgment task) is affected by the lemma frequency of the whole compound, as well as by each constituent's positional family frequency. In addition, the data demonstrate that a compound's constituents are not just conjointly activated but are bound together in a particular way; responses to a compound (e.g., "snowball") were faster when the compound was preceded by a compound using the same relational structure (e.g., "snowfort"--MADE OF) than when preceded by a compound using a different relational structure (e.g., "snowshovel"--FOR). This finding suggests that the conceptual representation of a compound word might be based on a relational structure. (Contains 3 tables.)

P. Maguire, B. Devereux, F. Costello, and A. Cater discussed the Gagne and Shoben (1997) CARIN theory of conceptual combination and, after presenting a sample drawn from the British National Corpus and comparing the two corpora, concluded that the Gagne and Shoben corpus is too small and unrepresentative. They then discussed the mathematical model presented by Gagne and Shoben and claimed that the model does not incorporate relational competition. In this article, the authors present critical aspects of the mathematical model not considered by Maguire et al. and show that the mathematical instantiation of CARIN presented by Gagne and Shoben is, in fact, very sensitive to the number of strong competing relations. The authors then present some new comparisons between the corpora, showing that they correspond surprisingly well.

C. L. Gagne and E. Shoben (1997) proposed that the conceptual system contains information about how concepts are used to modify other concepts and that this relational information influences the ease with which concepts combine. Recently, E. J. Wisniewski and G. L. Murphy (see record EJ689195) suggested that C. L. Gagne and E. Shoben's measure of relation availability was confounded with familiarity and plausibility and that the participants could simply retrieve the stored meanings of the phrases because the phrases were not novel. In this article, the authors demonstrate that E. J. Wisniewski and G. L. Murphy's plausibility and familiarity judgments are dependent variables that (a) are themselves responsive to changes in relation availability, (b) modifier relation availability predicts response time even when the influence of phrase familiarity and plausibility is controlled, and (c) the materials consisted of mainly novel phrases.

Two experiments investigated the influence of sentential context on the relative ease of deriving a particular meaning for novel and familiar compounds. Experiment 1 determined which of two possible meanings was preferred for a set of novel phrases. Experiment 2 used both novel (e.g., "brain sponge") and familiar compounds (e.g., "bug spray"). The compounds appeared in a sentential context that supported either the dominant or subdominant meaning. Next, participants saw either the dominant or subdominant definition and indicated whether it was plausible. When the definition was consistent with the preceding sentence, the participants were more likely to consider the definition plausible regardless of whether the compound was novel or familiar, although this difference was more pronounced for novel phrases than for familiar phrases. In terms of response times, the effect of sentential context also depended on the degree of dominance. The data suggest that the interpretation of compounds is affected by at least two sources of information: sentential context and the relative dominance of the preferred meaning. (Contains 3 figures and 2 footnotes.)

A key question in research concerning the typing production of morphologically complex words is whether the whole multimorphemic word is output ballistically or whether individual constituents are accessed during typing. To address this question, we examined keystroke latencies during the production of English compounds (e.g., snowball) to test whether the initiation and continued typing of each constituent (e.g., snow and ball) are influenced by its linguistic properties (length, frequency, and semantic transparency). Participants identified and then typed a compound word. We found that the initiation and continued typing of each constituent was influenced by the linguistic properties of that constituent. However, the linguistic properties of the second constituent also influenced the typing latency of the final letter of the first constituent, suggesting that production of the first constituent overlapped with accessing and planning the keystrokes of the second constituent. The influence of the linguistic properties of the first constituent on its own initiation and continued typing suggests that accessing and planning the keystrokes of the first constituent occurred as the compound word was being identified. Our findings indicate that individual constituents are accessed during production and influence the typing of compound words. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]