Availability of constituents' semantic representations during the processing of opaque and transparent compound words

• Author / Creator

  Marchak, Kristan

• This project examined whether the availability of the semantic representations of the constituents of opaque compounds depends on the transparency of the first and second constituents. Four semantic priming experiments were conducted using a lexical decision task. Across the experiments, the transparency of the first or second constituents of compound primes was manipulated, while the transparency of the other constituent was held constant. Response times to targets preceded by related or unrelated compound primes were compared. Semantic priming was observed for all constituents, except the first constituents of fully opaque compounds. The lack of semantic priming for fully opaque compounds could be the result of a conflict between the constructed and retrieved meanings of these compounds (as discussed by Gagné & Spalding, 2009; Ji, 2008; Ji, Gagné, & Spalding, in press). This research suggests that constituent semantic representations are available and that semantic integration might occur even for opaque compounds.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Compound words
  • Semantic representations
  • Semantic transparency
  • Position-in-the-string
  • Semantic integration
  • Morphological decomposition

• Graduation date

  Fall 2011

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Science

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3JF09

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.