Abstract
An unresolved question in second language (L2) acquisition research is whether L2 learners differ from native speakers in their use of morphological information in accessing multimorphemic words. L2 compound studies are of particular importance for this line of research because compounds, as words which are predominantly composed of two free morphemes, enable researchers to investigate how semantic transparency, morphological headedness and frequency influence complex word processing. Studies with native speakers have revealed semantic transparency and headedness as two factors influencing constituent-based decompositional processing; whereas studies with L2 learners have so far revealed inconsistent reliance on these factors. The present study investigates this issue via a masked priming experiment testing English noun-noun compound processing by L1-Turkish-speaking learners of English (advanced and intermediate-level learners) and by native speakers of English. Findings suggest that native-like morphological decomposition is possible with increasing L2 proficiency.
Highlights
The processing of monomorphemic and m ultimorphemic words has been on the forefront of psycholinguistic research over the past four decades
The results showed that the transparent condition produced significant priming effects but the opaque condition did not, suggesting that, as a function of transparency, decompositional and whole-word route are both possible in L2 English compound processing
Analysis 1 To investigate whether compounds were processed differently from noncompounds, the mean reaction times (RTs) to two types of compound words were compared with the mean RTs to noncompounds (Table 4)
Summary
The processing of monomorphemic and m ultimorphemic words (both inflected and derived) has been on the forefront of psycholinguistic research over the past four decades (see Marslen-Wilson, 2007, for a review). Unlike derived and inflected forms, which contain bound morphemes in predictable positions, compounds involve the combination of two or more (free) morphemes. This makes it possible to examine complex word processing without affix-related confounds. When two lexemes are combined to create a new word, the lexeme(s) can either retain or lose the original meaning(s), leading to compounds with varying degrees of transparency These inherent characteristics of compounds have made it possible to investigate a range of issues, such as the role of constituency/headedness and semantic transparency in processing complex words (Fiorentino, 2006)
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