Abstract
Two lexical decision experiments were designed to address the effects of frequency and semantic transparency of the constituent morphemes in bilingual compound processing. In Experiment 1, the frequency of the second constituent morphemes and the lexicality of the translated compounds in the non-target language were manipulated. A significant interaction in RT data between the constituent frequency and the lexicality of the non-target language was revealed: the lexicality effect of the non-target language was stronger for compounds with high-frequency second constituents compared to those with low-frequency ones. In Experiment 2, the semantic transparency of the constituents of the target language, the lexicality of the non-target language, and the second language (L2) proficiency of the participants were manipulated. A significant three-way interaction was found: for the high-proficient group, there was a lexicality effect for opaque words but not for transparent words. For the low-proficient group, no interaction was found between semantic transparency and the lexicality of the non-target language. Taken together, these findings provided evidence for compound decomposition, cross-language activation in bilingual mental lexicon, and for the mediator role of L2 proficiency.
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