Eye movements during the reading of compound words and the influence of lexeme meaning

Abstract

Compound words are formed by combining free lexemes into a single lexicalized expression. Few rules govern this lexical-conceptual "evolution." In English, lexicographers find new compounds by examining popular usage-that is, words used together relatively often to denote a specific concept. Most compounds become "solid"-that is, are written as spatially unified expressions-but others are written with a blank space between the lexeme constituents or are hyphenated. One central question in the study of compound recognition has been whether the spatial and conceptual unification of solid compounds is reversed during the recognition process-that is, whether the constituents of the comp pound are discerned and accessed before the overall word is recognized. The bulk of the available empirical evidence indicates that such decomposition indeed takes place.Experimental effects of compound decomposition have b been obtained when either individually presented compound words or words related to compound word primes were to b be named or classified (see, e.g., Coolen, van Jaarsveld, & Schreuder, 1991, 1993Inhoff & Topolski, 1994;Laudanna, Badecker, & Caramazza, 1989;Libben, Derwing, & de Almeida, 1999;Lima & Pollatsek, 1983;Prinzmetal, 1990;Prinzmetal, Hoffman, & Vest, 1991;Sandra, 1990;Shillcock, 1990;Taft, 1985;Taft & Forster, 1976;van Jaarsveld & Rattink, 1988;Zwitserlood, 1994). Decompositional effects have also been obtained when compound words were viewed during sentence reading (Andrews, Miller, & Rayner, 2004;Bertram & Hyönä, 2003;Hyönä & Pollatsek, 1998;Inhoff, Briihl, & Schwartz, 1996;Inhoff, Radach, & Heller, 2000;Juhasz, 2007;Juhasz, Inhoff, & Rayner, 2005;Juhasz, Starr, Inhoff, & Placke, 2003;Pollatsek, Hyönä, & Bertram, 2000). In Hyönä and Pollatsek's influential study, readers spent less time viewing spatially unified Finnish compounds with high-frequency beginning lexemes than viewing matched compounds with low-frequency beginning lexemes. The frequency of the beginning lexeme influenced compound reading at a relatively early stage; d that is, the first-fixation duration was shorter when a solid compound contained a high-frequency beginning lexeme. A follow-up study, Pollatsek et d al. (2000), further showed that both the word frequency of the second lexeme and the frequency of the full compound word influenced compound viewing and that these two frequency effects emerged at approximately the same time, after the first fixation on a com r -pound word. Readers thus discern the constituent lexemes of spatially unified long Finnish compound words and use these lexemes progressively in a time-locked manner.Decomposition of compound words may assist the accessing of orthographic word forms. The orthographic form of a constituent lexeme is less complex and is generally much more common and familiar than the orthot graphic form of the full compound. Lexical search that proceeds from relatively simple and familiar lexeme forms to the full compound form could thus be more effective than lexical search using only the...

A database of 629 English compound words: ratings of familiarity, lexeme meaning dominance, semantic transparency, age of acquisition, imageability, and sensory experience

“…If the frequency of a compound's constituent lexemes influences processing times on the compound, then it follows that those lexemes are accessed during the recognition of the full compound. The results of most studies with English compound words converge in showing a functional role for lexemes during compound processing using a variety of tasks such as word naming, lexical decision, and eye movements during sentence reading (e.g., Andrews, 1986;Andrews, Miller, & Rayner, 2004;Inhoff, Starr, Solomon, & Placke, 2008;Juhasz, 2007Juhasz, , 2008Juhasz, , 2012Juhasz, Starr, Inhoff, & Placke, 2003). These results with English compounds share many similarities to those observed in languages such as Finnish (e.g., Hyönä & Pollatsek, 1998;Pollatsek, Hyönä, & Bertram, 2000) in which compounding is more productive.…”

“…The results of both Marelli and Luzzatti (2012) and Inhoff et al (2008) suggest that semantic information can affect early morphological processing. The finding that activation of a compound word's semantic representation can influence its initial processing brings up the question of what exactly is contained in the semantic representation of a compound word.…”

“…Taken together, their results suggested that semantic transparency and headedness can have relatively early and long-lasting effects on compound word processing in Italian. Inhoff et al (2008) also observed differing patterns of lexeme frequency effects in English compound words as a function of a semantic variable. Specifically, they defined a new rated variable that we will refer to as "lexeme meaning dominance."…”

Subjective frequency norms for 330 Spanish simple and compound words

“…Subjective frequency and familiarity ratings may therefore be tapping (2000) detected a significant frequency advantage (i.e., shorter fixation duration) for the first lexeme only on the first fixation; frequency effects for the compound words and all constituent lexemes were observed when total gaze duration (i.e., the sum of all fixation durations on a word prior to moving to another word) was examined (for similar results, see Andrews, Miller, & Rayner, 2004). Follow-up studies have found that the magnitude of the constituent frequency effect was larger for the lexeme that contributes most to the meaning of the whole compound word (i.e., dominant vs. nondominant constituent; Inhoff et al, 2008). It may indeed be more efficient to process constituent lexemes, which are often more familiar than the full form, as the meaning of the compound word is accessed.…”

“…Using the same methodology, other studies have reported a significant constituent frequency effect for the first lexeme only (Taft & Forster, 1976), for the second lexeme only (Duñabeitia, Perea, & Carreiras, 2007;Juhasz, Starr, Inhoff, & Placke, 2003), or for both lexemes (Andrews, 1986;Inhoff, Starr, Solomon, & Placke, 2008;Zwitserlood, 1994). 1 These studies suggest that the pattern of frequency effects in compound word processing could depend on the way compound words are constructed in different languages, task requirements, the dependent variables being measured, and/or the interactions among these factors.…”