Full-form vs. combinatorial processing of Chinese compound words: Evidence from mismatch negativity

Zou, Yun; Tsang, Yiu Kei; Shum, Yu-Hei; Tse, Chun‐Yu

doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2023.02.004

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…For Chinese, Tsang et al ( 2022 ) report a reduction of the MMN amplitude for transparent compounds relative to pseudocompounds, but equal MMN amplitudes for opaque and pseudocompounds. Zou et al ( 2023 ) report an MMN amplitude reduction relative to the pseudoword baseline for low-frequency compounds, but not for high-frequency compounds. The authors of the respective studies explain their findings as showing that Chinese compounds are routinely decomposed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wolf-hound vs. sled-dog: neurolinguistic evidence for semantic decomposition in the recognition of German noun-noun compounds

Czypionka,

Kharaman,

Eulitz

2023

Front. Psychol.

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Animacy is an intrinsic semantic property of words referring to living things. A long line of evidence shows that words with animate referents require lower processing costs during word recognition than words with inanimate referents, leading among others to a decreased N400 amplitude in reaction to animate relative to inanimate objects. In the current study, we use this animacy effect to provide evidence for access to the semantic properties of constituents in German noun-noun compounds. While morphological decomposition of noun-noun compounds is well-researched and illustrated by the robust influence of lexical constituent properties like constituent length and frequency, findings for semantic decomposition are less clear in the current literature. By manipulating the animacy of compound modifiers and heads, we are able to manipulate the relative ease of lexical access strictly due to intrinsic semantic properties of the constituents. Our results show additive effects of constituent animacy, with a higher number of animate constituents leading to gradually attenuated N400 amplitudes. We discuss the implications of our findings for current models of complex word recognition, as well as stimulus construction practices in psycho-and neurolinguistic research.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%