Abstract
Objective. The current study aims at investigating if the morphological structure of the first language (L1) equivalents affects the processing of second language (L2) words.
 Materials & Methods. To this end, 400 Arabic-English bilinguals of two levels of language proficiency completed a free recall task and a discrete word association task in their L2. The stimuli represented cases of lexical matches and mismatches.
 Results. The results of the free recall task showed a facilitation effect for lexical matching in one comparison for the participants with lower proficiency while lexical matching led to an inhibitory effect in two comparisons for the participants with higher proficiency. Additionally, the participants with higher proficiency generally recalled more words than the participants with lower proficiency, and recalled monomorphemic words significantly differently than multi-morphemic words in one comparison. As for the results of the word association task, they failed to reveal significance for word type or language proficiency when association strength was considered. Only when the number of associations was considered, a facilitatory effect for lexical matching was observed in one comparison among the participants with lower proficiency. 
 Conclusions. The results generally support the claim that L2 learners exhibit sensitivity to the morphological structure of L1 words. The results also lend support to the interaction model of morphological processing and the bilingual lexicon models that highlight the influence of language proficiency on language processing.
Highlights
The interaction between a bilingual’s first (L1) and second (L2) languages during L2 acquisition and processing has represented an intriguing area of research due to its important theoretical and practical implications (e.g., Bergmann, Sprenger & Schmid, 2015; Carrol, Conklin & Gyllstad, 2016; Hopp, 2017; Marian & Spivey, 2003; Türker, 2016)
The main question is: Does the lexicalization of L1 equivalents influence the processing of L2 words? The current study addresses this question from a morphological perspective based on Levy E., Goral M., and Obler’s L. (2007) claim that bilingual speakers show sensitivity to the morphological structure of the L1 translation equivalents – if the L1 equivalent is a bimorphemic compound or a monomorphemic word
In order to answer the research question, Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) – version 25 was used for the necessary statistical comparisons
Summary
The interaction between a bilingual’s first (L1) and second (L2) languages during L2 acquisition and processing has represented an intriguing area of research due to its important theoretical and practical implications (e.g., Bergmann, Sprenger & Schmid, 2015; Carrol, Conklin & Gyllstad, 2016; Hopp, 2017; Marian & Spivey, 2003; Türker, 2016). An interesting phenomenon that can well serve this line of research is how lexicalization patterns – the mappings between words and concepts – differ across languages. The German word Tasche is polysemous and is translated into two different words in English bag and pocket (Elston-Güttler & Williams, 2008). The English monomorphemic word pencil is translated into an Arabic compound noun spelled as two separate words قلم رصاص. Such crosslinguistic variations in lexicalization patterns reflect language specificity in word-concept mappings (Elston-Güttler & Williams, 2008). It is intriguing to explore if such cross-linguistic variations can influence L2 acquisition and/or processing
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