2025/06/23 by Yan Feng, Lili Yu, Qiaoming Zhang +1 · 1 voice
Neuroscience · Psychology · Arts and Humanities · #Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism #Second Language Acquisition and Learning #Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation
paper · pdf · doi:10.1080/23273798.2025.2521096
openalex publication_date 2025/06/23 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/15
Using the morpho-semantic priming paradigm, we investigated whether and when readers access the meaning of constituent morphemes in compound words in Chinese and English. In this paradigm, the target is a word semantically associated with a morpheme embedded in a compound word prime (e.g. butterknife/butterfly – BREAD). In Experiment 1 using masked primes with Chinese, transparent compound primes but not opaque compounds produced morpho-semantic priming effect, i.e. facilitated lexical decision to the semantically associated target. In Experiment 2a using masked primes with English, morpho-semantic priming effects were not observed with either the transparent or opaque compound primes. In Experiment 2b using the same stimuli as visible primes, the same pattern of morpho-semantic priming effects as for the Chinese experiment emerged. These findings suggest that meanings of morphemes are accessed earlier in Chinese than in English, but for both languages, only for transparent compounds and not for opaque compounds.