Tmpe908 TMP

Language, Cognition & Neuroscience
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Journal:
Manuscript ID
Date Submitted by the Author:
Original Paper
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Smolka, Eva; University of Konstanz, Linguistics

Libben, Gary; Brock University
morphological priming, compound processing, constituent priming,
semantic transparency
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Keywords:
PLCP-2016-OP-10019.R2
Complete List of Authors:
Language, Cognition and Neuroscience
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Manuscript Type:
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Can You Wash off the Hogwash? Semantic Transparency

of First and Second Constituents in the Processing of
German Compounds
URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/plcp Email: LCPadmin@csl.psychol.cam.ac.uk
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THE PROCESSING OF GERMAN COMPOUNDS

Running Head: CONSTITUENT TRANSPARENCY IN COMPOUND PROCESSING
Can You Wash off the Hogwash? Semantic Transparency of First and Second
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Constituents in the Processing of German Compounds
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Eva Smolka and 2Gary Libben
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University of Konstanz
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Brock University
Correspondence to:
Department of Linguistics
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University of Konstanz
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Eva Smolka
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78457 Konstanz
GERMANY
Email: eva.smolka@uni-konstanz.de
Phone: +49-7531-88 4834
Fax:
+49-7531-88 4898
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Abstract
This study examined whether the lexical processing of German compounds is driven
by semantic transparency and applied an overt visual priming experiment to manipulate the
transparency of modifiers or heads. When manipulating modifiers, participants responded to
compounds like Hundeauge (dogs eye) or Hhnerauge (corn) that were preceded by their
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transparent (Hund, dog) or opaque (Huhn, hen) modifier, respectively, or unrelated

controls. When manipulating heads, participants responded to compounds like Pferdeohr
(horses ear) or Eselsohr (dog-ear; literal: donkeys ear) that were preceded by their
transparently or opaquely related head Ohr (ear), or an unrelated control.
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Results showed that compound frequency was facilitatory, head frequency was
inhibitory, and modifier frequency was both. These findings indicate that compound
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constituents and their corresponding independent words compete in compound processing.

Furthermore, both modifiers and heads induced priming regardless of their semantic
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transparency, indicating that lexical representation in German incorporates constituent

structure, regardless of semantic transparency.
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Keywords: (5 keywords) morphological priming; compound processing; constituent priming;

semantic transparency; lexical representation;
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Can You Wash off the Hogwash? Semantic Transparency of First and Second
Constituents in the Processing of German Compounds
Compounds such as blackboard and swordfish represent a class of words that are
extremely common and productive across the worlds languages. Because compound words
are composed of lexical constituents that often correspond to existing free-standing words, it
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is easy for a speaker of a language to coin new compounds and to construct a plausible
interpretation for compounds that are encountered for the first time (Libben, 2006). Thus, a
native speaker of English who is familiar with compounds such as swordfish and goldfish will
easily construct interpretations of, and possible visual images for, novel compounds such as
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shovel-fish and bronze-fish.
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Unlike derivational affixation, compounding rarely involves selection restrictions,

enabling considerable productivity. So, for example, whereas a derivational suffix such as -
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ness in English will be restricted to attachment to preceding adjectives, a lexemic element

such as fish in English can combine relatively freely in all positions (e.g., fishnet, fishtail,
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swordfish, goldfish, and even a rock music band called Deadfishbabies).
This ease of coinage and interpretability have made it possible for psycholinguists to
use compound words to explore fundamental properties of the lexical processing system, the
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manner in which lexical representations are linked in the mind, and the interplay of
constituent and whole word meaning in online lexical processing. In this way, the study of
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compound words has had a direct impact on models of the mental lexicon and the role that
morphological processing plays within it. Numerous studies have shown that when native
speakers of a language perceive a stimulus to be a compound word, they cannot but access its
constituents (e.g., Zwitserlood, 1994; Libben, 1994; Kuperman, Bertram, Schreuder, and
Baayen, 2009). This has raised the question of how the activation of whole word
representations is linked to the activation of morphological constituents, a question that has
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been at the center of competing models of the mental lexicon. Taft and Forster (1975; 1976)
initially proposed that multimorphemic words, including compounds, are processed through
their constituents (i.e, that obligatory constituent activation leads to whole word activation).
This position can be contrasted directly with that proposed by Giraudo and Grainger (2001)
in which exactly the opposite was claimed, namely that constituents are only activated
through whole multimorphemic words. Models such as the one proposed by Baayen and
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Schreuder (1999) provided a third approach by claiming that the activation of morphological
constituents and whole words is determined by a number of factors that together determine
which type of lexical representation will be activated before the other for a particular word
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under particular circumstances. These positions can be contrasted with proposals that claim
that all representations that can be activated will be activated and that activation does not
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require mediation either from constituents to whole words or from whole words to
constituents. Examples of this approach include Libben (2006; 2014), Kuperman, Bertram,
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Schreuder, and Baayen, (2009), and Kuperman (2013) whose claims have been based on the
study of compound words.
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A key reason for the centrality of compound processing in modeling morphological
processing within the mental lexicon is that the morphological analysis of constituent
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structure within compound words is relatively uncomplicated both across and within
languages. This is not to say, however, that compound structures do not differ. As we discuss
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below, languages can differ in terms of whether compounding is head initial, head final, or
both. In addition, within languages, compounds can differ greatly in terms of their semantic
transparency.
Heads and Modifiers
Compound words such as blackboard and swordfish follow the structural pattern that
is typical of compounding in Germanic languages like English, Dutch, and German. The final
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constituent provides the basic meaning and specifies the grammatical category of the whole
compound. So, for example, the adjective-noun compound blackboard, is a noun rather than
an adjective. In terms of semantics, the head of the compound shapes the categorical
membership of the whole compound. Thus, a swordfish is understood to be a type of fish, not
a type of sword. This headedness effect is particularly evident when we consider reversible
compounds such as those formed with the nouns boat and house. A boathouse can only be
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interpreted in English as a type of house and never a type of boat. Yet, the reversed
compound houseboat can only be interpreted as a type of boat and never a type of house.
It is typical across languages for compounds to have heads and modifiers. However,
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whether or not the head is the initial or final constituent of a compound is a language-specific
characteristic. Thus, as Germanic languages, both English and German show head-final
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compounding, while in a Semitic language such as Hebrew, the head of a compound appears
as the first constituent, and in Romance languages such as Italian and French, some
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compounds are head initial and some compounds are head final.
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The modifiers of compounds, although they do not specify grammatical and broad
meaning category, often perform a significant semantic grouping function. This can be seen
by considering, as an example, the family of compound words bound together by the
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constituent bat in compounds such as batman, batplane, and batcar or by the constituent
space in compounds such as spaceship, space station, and spaceport or by the constituent
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mountain in compounds such as mountaintop, mountain magazine, and mountain boots. In

this latter set, we see, as noted by Gagn and colleagues (e.g. Gagn & Shoben, 1997; Gagn
& Spalding, 2009), that although the constituent mountain can be said to function as a
modifier in all three cases, the sematic relation between mountain as a modifier and the heads
of the compounds differs considerably. In mountaintop, there is a part-of semantic relation.
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In mountain magazine, the magazine is about mountains. In mountain boots, the boots are
for mountains.
Recent research has underlined the ways in which compound heads and modifiers can
participate in priming in substantially different ways. As Libben (2014) claims, although
compound constituents often share phonetic and visual forms with the free-standing words
from which they are derived, they may have distinct mental lexical representations
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corresponding to their grammatical roles. This opens the possibility that constituents and
their whole word counterparts may in fact compete for activation under specific experimental
conditions. Goral, Libben, Obler, Jarema, and Ohayon (2008) report that constituent priming
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effects for initial constituents in English and Hebrew only obtained in the case in which those
constituents corresponded to low frequency free-standing words. For modifiers that
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corresponded to high frequency words, constituent priming was indistinguishable from

priming with an unrelated word. This also accords with findings obtained by Marelli,
Crepaldi, and Luzzatti (2009) for Italian.
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Semantic Transparency
It is very rare that the meaning of a compound word can be determined from the
meaning of its constituents alone. Even compounds that appear to be fully semantically
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transparent such as bedroom, classroom, and sunroom, do not have whole word meanings
that are easily predictable from constituent meanings in the absence of situational experience.
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More difficult, of course, are words such as restroom, which contains a euphemistic modifier
that can be said to render the compound semantically more opaque.
There are some extreme cases such as humbug in English (meaning nonsense) in
which both the modifier and head of a compound can be said to be semantically opaque. It is
not at all clear how the meaning of hum contributes to the meaning of the compound. And,
humbug is not a type of bug. In this way, humbug differs from the much more common type
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of semantically opaque compound such as ladybug, which is a type of bug, but not
straightforwardly related to the meaning of lady. In the present study, we will examine this
type of compounds in German in the manipulation of the transparency of the modifier.
A final type of opaque compound that is rare, but worthy of consideration is the type
exemplified by the English compound doughnut. Here it is the final head constituent that is
semantically opaque. A doughnut is typically made of dough. Yet, it is not a nut, and thus
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falls outside the semantic family of compounds whose members include peanut, hazelnut,
and Brazil nut. In this study, we will examine this type of compounds in German in the
manipulation of the transparency of the head.
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Modifier-Head and Semantic Transparency Effects in the Online Processing of Compounds
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In the modern psycholinguistic study of compound processing, semantic transparency

was already part of the early formulations in Taft and Forster (1976) and was subsequently
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investigated by Sandra (1990), Libben, Gibson, Yoon, and Sandra (2003), and Zwitserlood
(1994). These earlier studies addressed the issue of whether the semantic transparency of a
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compound word might affect the extent to which its constituents are accessed in online word
recognition. It was expected that semantically opaque words would be less likely to show
constituent activation because the semantic opacity of the whole word would make its
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constituents less salient and less useful to lexical comprehension and categorization.
Research over the past decades has yielded results in which semantically opaque
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words are generally processed more slowly than semantically transparent words (but see Ji,
Gagn, & Spalding, 2011). This finding suggests that the mechanisms responsible for these
effects are not, yet, fully clear. One approach that is consistent with the finding of a
processing disadvantage for semantically opaque compound words makes reference to
competition between compound constituents and their whole word counterparts (e.g., Libben,
2006; Frisson, NiswanderKlement, & Pollatsek, 2008; Fiorentino & Fund-Reznicek, 2009;
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Gagn & Spalding, 2009; Ji et al., 2011; Libben, 2006; Monahan, Fiorentino, & Poeppel,
2008). Under this approach, there is no fundamental difference in the extent to which the
morphological constituents of opaque and transparent words are accessed during word
recognition. The difference, and the locus of the effect, however, is that for opaque
compounds, constituent access creates more conflict between the properties of the constituent
and the properties of the whole word that corresponds to that constituent. So, for example, the
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activation of nut in doughnut will activate features of nut, that are much more compatible
with peanut, walnut, and Brazil nut than with doughnut and its associates cake, cookie, etc..
This activation and the need to reduce the lexical conflict it may generate takes time and thus
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increases response latency.
Gagn and Spalding (2014) have explored both the effects of semantic transparency
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and the contributions of patterns of semantic relations to the manner in which compound
words are represented and processed. In these studies and other studies on the effects of
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semantic transparency in compound processing, it has become evident that processing is

affected by the locus of opacity within the word, that is, faster processing occurs if the
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opaque constituent is the modifier but not if it is the head (e.g., Zwitserlood, 2004; Libben et
al., 1993).
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For German noun-noun compounds, Isel, Gunter, and Friederici (2003) found that the
modifier induced priming only if the head was transparent, but not if the head was
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semantically opaque. This accords with the results of Sandra (1990) and Zwitserlood (1994)
in Dutch. Overall, these findings across languages indicate that the headedness of the
compound plays an important role, as well as the transparency of its constituents, and both
factors seem to interact one with the other. Indeed, Marelli and Luzzatti (2012) found a headmodifier asymmetry associated with both constituent frequency and semantic transparency.
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Compounding in German
As we have stated above, German compounds like English ones are head-final. As in
English, German also contains multi-constituent compounds such as baseball bat and coffee
table lamp. In German, however, such compounds are typically written without spaces
between the constituent morphemes (e.g., Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitn,
captain of the Danube Steam Shipping Company or modern Fachbereichsratsitzung,
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departmental council meeting). It is also worthy of note that compounding in German is

very productive, so that it will be not uncommon for a native speaker of German to both
encounter and produce novel compounds. The high productivity of compounding in German
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creates a very large set of compounds that are transparent (because the producer of a novel
compound depends on the listeners or readers being able to interpret the compound in a given
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context from its constituents). German, like English also contains a relatively large set of
semantically opaque compounds such as Hhnerauge (chicken + interfix + eye = corn;
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i.e, the skin growth, clavus). This semantically opaque compound can be contrasted with
semantically transparent German compounds such as Glasauge (glass + eye = glass eye)
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and Hhnersuppe (chicken + interfix + soup = chicken soup).
The interfix -er noted in the examples Hhnersuppe and Hhnerauge above, points to
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a key characteristic of German compounding that distinguishes it from English. This is the
presence of interfixes between the compound constituents. The dominant interfix forms in
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German are -(e)n-, -e-, -er-, and -s-. Non-interfixed German compound forms include simple
root+root forms such as Nagellack (Nagel nail + Lack polish = nailpolish), in which both
constituents correspond to free morphemes, as well as compounds in which the modifier of
the compound has a truncated form and is not a free morpheme. Thus, the German
compound word for language laboratory is Sprachlabor, which is composed of the root
Sprache (language) minus the final e, plus the root Labor (laboratory). Linguistic
theories discuss whether the insertion of interfixes depends on prosodic features of the first
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constituent (to achieve a better metric structure of the compound; cf. Wegener, 2003) or on
the lexical level at which suffixes or interfixes may occur (cf. Wiese, 1996). Given that about
35% of German compounds contain interfixes, the German interfix system has been
investigated in a number psycholinguistic studies. Libben, Jarema, Dressler, Stark, and Pons
(2002) examined how the presence or absence of an interfix in a German compound affects
patterns of constituent priming in lexical decision task. Libben and colleagues found that
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constituent priming effects for interfixed compounds are related to the extent to which the
initial constituent in a compound shows a consistent pattern in the language with respect to
whether or not it is typically followed by an interfix and whether or not it can be followed by
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more than one interfix form. Most of the compound stimuli that we employed in the present
study included those with interfixes, only few those with truncated roots (see Material
section).
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As we have noted above, German is a language that is extremely well suited to the
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psycholinguistic investigation of compound reading. In German, compounding is a highly

productive word formation process which has consistent morphological headedness. German
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is also consistent in its visual representation of compounds so that biconstituent and
multiconstituent compounds are typically written as single words (i.e., without spaces).
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Our investigation focused on three questions that have been central in the
psycholinguistic literature on morphological processing in general and on compound
processing in particular. These three questions are listed below.
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Question 1: Does the prior activation of a form corresponding to a morphological

constituent affect its processing? The paradigm of constituent priming with lexical decision
provides a straightforward means of addressing this question. It was our expectation that, in
general, constituent priming would be facilitating, as compared to priming by a word that is
visually and semantically unrelated to the target compound or its constituents. However, if it
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is indeed the case that compound constituents and their independent word counterparts
constitute distinct and potentially competing mental representations (Libben, 2014), then we
should expect that the overall facilitating effect of constituent priming would be mitigated in
cases in which the frequency of the constituent as a free-standing word is high. Hence,
following the findings of Marelli and Luzzatti (2012), we expected that the frequency of the
modifier should compete with the activation of the whole compound and mitigate the overall
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facilitating effects of constituent priming. By contrast, we expected that compound frequency

will facilitate compound processing, that is, the higher the frequency of the compound, the
faster it will be recognized.
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Question 2: Is constituent priming affected by the semantic transparency of a

compound? As we have noted above, the issue of semantic transparency has received a great
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deal of attention in the psycholinguistic literature on compound processing. And, there seems
to be little doubt that, at some level, language users would experience some difference
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between opaque and transparent compound forms (if only in their ability to correctly guess at
the meanings of newly encountered ones). However, it does not necessarily follow from this
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that transparent and opaque forms will differ in terms of the fundamental components of
word recognition (e.g., in how letters are processed within words or perhaps whether
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constituent boundaries are recognized). Indeed, it could be the case that the fact that
compounding in German is so productive creates conditions under which semantic opacity
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would play less of a role, as compared to, say, compounding in Romance languages, in which
it is less dominant as a word formation process.
Previous findings in German have shown that complex verbs are lexically represented
via their constituents regardless of their transparency (Smolka, Komlsi, & Rsler, 2009;
Smolka et al., 2014). If these findings generalize to compounds and our assumption holds that
lexical representation in German comprises the constituents, we will find priming from both
semantically transparent and opaque constituents. By contrast, if the lexical representation of
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compounds in German is organized according to semantic transparency similar to that in
English (e.g., Marslen-Wilson, Bozic, & Randall, 2008; Marslen-Wilson, Tyler, Waksler, &
Older, 1994; Rastle, Davis, Marslen-Wilson, & Tyler, 2000; Rastle, Davis, & New, 2004;
Taft & Nguyen-Hoan, 2010), a compound will share a lexical entry with their modifier or
with their head only if it is semantically transparent, but not if it is opaque. Accordingly, the
transparent but not the opaque constituent will induce priming to the compound.
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Question 3: Do constituent effects differ depending on whether they are heads or

modifiers? The effects of potential word-constituent competition discussed in Question 1
above, and the effects of semantic transparency discussed in Question 2 above could be
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affected substantially by whether a constituent in a constituent priming paradigm corresponds

to the head or the modifier of the compound target. There are a number of reasons that this
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might be the case. The first may be that, generally speaking, heads and modifiers participate
in compound processing in different ways simply by virtue of their morphological roles in a
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multimorphemic word. Additionally, it is possible that heads and modifiers differ with
respect to the word-constituent competition (which would be specifically linked to the
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constituent priming paradigm that we employed), and that heads and modifiers differ with
respect to semantic transparency (which would be specifically linked to the experimental
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manipulation that we used). Questions 1, 2 and 3 above constituted the focus of our analysis
of the study. The constituent priming experiment involved lexical decision responses to
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compound targets in German. In this paradigm, we made use of two key contrasts among
stimuli. The first was stimulus contrast based on the semantic transparency of the modifier.
The second was stimulus contrast based on the semantic transparency of the head.
Investigating modifier transparency. A core feature of our stimulus selection was that,
in order to investigate modifier transparency, we selected pairs of compounds that have the
same head, but different modifiers. This created stimulus compound pairs such as Hundeauge
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(dogs eye) and Hhnerauge (literal, L: hens eye). Both compounds have the morpheme
Auge (meaning eye) as the head. However, in the first case, the compound is semantically
transparent. The compound composed of dog+eye means the eye of a dog. In contrast, the
compound composed of hen+eye is not normally interpreted by native speakers to simply
mean the eye of a hen. Rather, it is given the more semantically opaque interpretation of
referring to a local hardening and thickening of the epidermis (as on a toe) that has the
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medical term clavus and is usually called a corn in English. In our study, the two different
modifiers Hund (dog) and Huhn (hen) were both used as related primes for each of the
target compounds Hundeauge and Hhnerauge, respectively, and constituent priming was
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measured relative to matched unrelated nouns for each of the compound modifiers. Prime
conditions are exemplified in Table 1; all critical items are listed in Appendix A.
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Investigating head transparency. In order to investigate effects of head transparency,

we again selected pairs of compounds that have the same head, but different modifiers. In this
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case, however, the locus of opacity was the head morpheme. Consider, as an example, the
compounds Lastesel (pack donkey) and Drahtesel (L: wire donkey; F: bicycle). They
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share the head Esel, that as a free morpheme means donkey. The transparent compound
pack+donkey, refers to something that is a type of donkey. This is not the case in the
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compound Drahtesel (bicycle) in which the semantic relationship of the head morpheme to
an actual donkey is metaphorical. In this case, the same head Esel (donkey) was used as a
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related prime for both target compounds Lastesel and Drahtesel, and constituent priming was
measured relative to a matched unrelated noun. Prime conditions are exemplified in Table 2;
all critical items are listed in Appendix B.
Matters of experimental design and control. As we have discussed above, the priming
conditions differ between the stimulus sets investigating the transparency of the modifier and
that of the head. In the former, the related prime is the modifier and thus differs for each
compound target (together with the matched unrelated control), given that each compound
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contains a different modifier, even though it contains the same head as its twin in the
compound pair (e.g., Hundeauge dog+eye, Hhnerauge hen+eye). In the stimulus set
used to investigate head transparency, the related prime is the head (and thus also the
matched unrelated control), which is the same for the two compound targets of a compound
pair holding the same head. Thus, while previous studies have typically used completely
different compounds in different transparency conditions, the present study aimed to enhance
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the constituent priming design for compounds by comparing compound pairs that keep the
head constant. In addition, the present stimuli contained only nouns as stimuli to avoid word
category effects, and a filler rate of 72% was used to prevent expectancy and strategic effects.
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Further, the primes in all conditions were simple nouns and were thus (a) of the same word
category, and (b) closely matched on distributional variables like lemma and word form
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frequency, number of letters, syllables and neighbors. The primes differed only with respect
to their morphological and meaning relatedness with the compound target. To tap into lexical
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processing (for a review see Smolka, Preller, & Eulitz, 2014), we used overt priming with
long visual prime-exposure durations (of 300 ms SOA) and measured priming relative to an
unrelated condition.
Method
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Participants
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Thirty-nine students of the University of Konstanz participated in the experiment. All
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were monolingual native speakers of German, were not dyslexic, and reported normal or
corrected-to-normal vision.
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Materials
Semantic association test.
A semantic association test was conducted to establish the relatedness between
compounds and their constituents. We started out with about 300 different compounds that
were combined with three types of primes: the modifier, the head, and an unrelated control
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noun (matched to the head on various distributional variables; there were no control nouns
matched to the modifier in the semantic association test). Compounds and their different
primes were distributed across eight lists, each list held between 150 to 154 word pairs. In
total, about 1,212 prime-target pairs were tested. The noun intended as the prime preceded
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the compound. Each list contained one related and one unrelated prime of the same
compound. For example, list 3 tested the meaning relation of the head in the pair Lupe-
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Zeitlupe and an unrelated control Enge-Zeitlupe; list 4 tested the meaning relation of the
modifier in the pair Zeit-Zeitlupe and Enge-Zeitlupe. Sixty-nine participants who did not
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participate in the experiment proper rated the meaning relation between a word pair on a 7-
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point scale from completely unrelated (1) to highly related (7). For example, Please rate on a
scale from 1-7 how strongly Lupe (magnifying glass) is meaning-related with Zeitlupe
(slow-motion)?; or how strongly Zeit (time) is meaning-related with Zeitlupe (slowmotion)?
Critical stimuli for investigating modifier transparency.
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Twenty-eight compound pairs were selected from the semantic association test
described above. Each compound pair held the same head, as in Hundeauge (dogs eye) and
Hhnerauge (corn, literal: hens eye). In each compound pair, the modifier of one
compound was semantically transparent, such as Hund (dog) in Hundeauge, and
semantically opaque, such as Huhn (hen) in Hhnerauge in the other compound.
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The following criteria determined whether a compound pair was included in the
critical set: The mean ratings for a compound with a transparent modifier had to be higher
than 4, and those for a compound with an opaque modifier had to be lower than 3.3. Mean
ratings of the final set were 5.7 (SD 0.6) for semantically transparent and 2.7 (SD 0.3) for
opaque modifiers. A one-way ANOVA was performed on mean ratings with compounds as
random variables. The between items factor transparency was highly significant, F(1, 54) =
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449.55, p < .0001, indicating that the ratings for semantically transparent and opaque
constituents significantly differed from each other.
All compounds had interfixes with the exception of two that had truncated roots.
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These were Sonnabend, which is composed of the root Sonne (sun) minus the final e, plus
the root Abend (evening), and similar for Wollmtze. Besides the compound Deckmantel
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(from decken, to cover) which is a verb-noun compound, all compounds were noun-noun
compounds.
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Each compound like Hundeauge was combined with two primes: (a) the modifier like
Hund (dog) and (b) an unrelated noun like Rest (left-over) that was neither
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morphologically, semantically, nor form-related with the compound. Each unrelated noun
was closely matched to the related modifier on number of syllables and letters, as well as on
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lemma frequency (according to CELEX, Baayen et al., 1993). A one-way ANOVA

conducted on lemma frequencies indicated that there was no difference between related and
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unrelated prime conditions, F < 1. Table 1 provides all stimulus characteristics. The
frequency of the modifier was always higher than that of the whole compound, with only one
exception (Sonnabend: lemma frequency = 94/million, Sonne: lemma frequency =
91/million).
Table 1 about here
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Critical stimuli for investigating head transparency.
As with the manipulation of the modifier, the critical set of 28 compound-pairs
holding the same head, as in Lastesel (pack donkey) and Drahtesel (bicycle, literal: wire
donkey), were selected from the semantic association test described above. The meaning of
the compounds head Esel (donkey) was either semantically transparent or opaque, as in
Lastesel and Drahtesel, respectively. To be included in the critical set, a compound with a
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transparent head needed a mean rating score higher than 4, and a compound with an opaque
head required a rating score lower than 3.4. Mean ratings of the final set were 5.8 (SD 0.8)
for semantically transparent and 2.7 (SD 0.4) for semantically opaque heads. A one-way
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ANOVA was performed on mean ratings with compounds as random variables. The between
items factor transparency was highly significant, F(2, 54) = 350.61, p < .0001, indicating that
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the ratings for semantically transparent heads significantly differed from the ones for opaque
heads.
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Of the 56 compounds, two had truncated roots (Erdnuss, peanut, and Seitpferd,
pommel horse), two compounds were verb-noun compounds (Pennbruder from pennen,
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sleep, and Zwickmhle from zwicken, pinch), one was an adjective-noun compound
(Wildpferd from wild, wild), all others were noun-noun compounds.
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Both compounds of a compound pair (e.g., Lastesel and Drahtesel) were combined
with two primes, (a) the head like Esel (donkey) and (b) an unrelated noun like Papa
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(dad) that was neither morphologically, semantically, nor form-related with the compound.
Each unrelated noun was closely matched to the head on number of syllables, letters, and
neighbors as well as on lemma and word form frequency (according to CELEX, Baayen et
al., 1993). A one-way ANOVA conducted on lemma and word form frequencies indicated
that there was no difference between related and unrelated prime conditions, F < 1.
Table 2 provides all stimulus characteristics. Appendix B lists all compounds and
heads and their corresponding transparency definitions and ratings as well as matched
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unrelated primes. The frequencies of all heads were higher than those of their corresponding
compounds.
Table 2 about here
In addition, we collected distributional variables separately for (a) the modifier, (b)
the head, (c) the whole-word compound, and (d) the prime (related/unrelated; related primes
correspond to the modifier). The following variables were collected from the dlexDB
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database (Heister et al., 2011): absolute and normalized lemma frequency, absolute and
normalized familiarity, number of Coltheart neighbors (i.e. neighbors according to the
definition by Coltheart, Davelaar, Jonasson, and Besner (1977), are types of the same length
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that differ with respect to a single position from the reference type; additions or deletions of a
sign are not allowed), and number of Levenshtein neighbors (i.e. neighbors according to the
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definition by Levenshtein et al. (1966), are types that differ from the reference type in a
single editing operation, which may include the exchange, insertion or deletion of a sign).
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Absolute and normalized lemma frequencies were further collected from the CELEX
database (see Baayen et al., 1993), as well as number of letters and syllables.
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Transparency measures were (a) the mean rating scores (on a scale from 1-7 from the
semantic association test described above) that reflected the meaning relatedness between the
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modifier or the head and the whole-word compound, and (b) the binary Transparency
(transparent/opaque) of the modifier or head, as referred to in a dictionary (Dudenredaktion,
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2009). If the dictionary description referred to the meaning of the constituent, it was
considered as being transparent, otherwise it was considered as being opaque. For
example, the DUDEN defines Apfelbaum (apple tree) as redly- whitish blossoming fruit
tree with apples as fruits. Because both constituents tree and apple appear in the
definition, both are considered as being transparent (i.e. a TT compound). The modifier
referring to light occurs in the definition of Lichtermeer (sea of lights) a large amount
of brightly glowing lamps and lights and is thus transparent, while the head sea is not
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referred to and thus opaque (hence, this is a TO compound). In the definition of Spiegelei
(egg sunny side up) as an egg that is fried in a pan while the egg yolk remains whole, the
head egg is referred to so that it is considered transparent while the modifier is opaque (i.e.
it is an OT compound). With respect to OO compounds, the DUDEN entry typically neither
refers to the modifier nor the head, as is the case in Hhnerauge (L: hens eye; F: corn),
Drahtesel (L: wire donkey; F: bicycle) which is paraphrased as bicycle, or Schlagbaum
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L: hit tree; F: barrier, toll bar) which is defined as barrier (especially at borders) that
can be vertically raised. Appendices A and B list all compounds, their related constituents
(modifiers and heads, respectively) and their corresponding transparency definitions and
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ratings as well as matched unrelated primes.

Fillers.
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To prevent strategic effects, a total of 288 prime-target pairs were added as fillers.
None were morphologically, semantically, nor form-related. All had simple nouns as primes,
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88 had compounds and 200 had pseudocompounds as targets. Pseudocompounds were
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constructed by exchanging one or two letters in each constituent of a real compound, while
preserving the phonotactic constraints of German. All pseudocompounds thus had the same
morphological structure as real compounds.
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To summarize, each list contained 288 fillers and 112 critical items, half of which
were related, the other half unrelated (resulting in 56 related and 344 unrelated prime-target
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pairs per list). Overall, the large amount of fillers reduced the proportion of (a) all critical
items to 28%, (b) form-relatedness (between constituent and compound) to 14%, and (c)
meaning-relatedness (between transparent modifiers and heads and the corresponding
compound) to 7% of the whole material set. All filler items differed from those of the critical
set.
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Apparatus
Stimuli were presented on a 18.1 monitor connected to an IBM-compatible AMD
Atlon 1.4 GHz personal computer. Stimulus presentation and data collection were controlled
by the Presentation software developed by Neurobehavioral Systems (http://nbs.neurobs.com). Response latencies were recorded from the left and right buttons of a push-button
box.
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Design
Primes of the same compound target were rotated over two lists according to a Latin
Square design. Participants received only one experimental list and therefore saw each target
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word only once. Participants saw four priming conditions, those in list 1 saw related primes
of compounds holding transparent modifiers, unrelated primes of compounds holding opaque
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modifiers, related primes of the opaque head, and unrelated primes of the transparent head,
and vice versa for participants of list 2. For example, participants in list 1 saw Hund-
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Hundeauge and Zaun-Hhnerauge, Esel-Drahtesel and Papa-Lastesel; and participants in list
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2 saw Rest-Hundeauge and Huhn-Hhnerauge, Papa-Drahtesel and Esel-Lastesel.
Each list was divided into four blocks, each block containing the same amount of
stimuli per condition. In total, an experimental session comprised 400 prime-target pairs
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presented in four experimental blocks, with 100 prime-target pairs per block. Trial
presentation within blocks was pseudo-randomized separately for each participant, so that no
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more than four consecutive word or nonword targets occurred in a row. Sixteen additional
prime-target pairs served as practice trials.
Procedure
Participants were tested individually, seated at a viewing distance of about 60 cm
from the screen. Stimuli were presented in white Sans-Serif letters on a black background. To
make primes and targets physically distinct stimuli, primes were presented in uppercase
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letters, point 26, 20 points above the center of the screen, targets were presented centrally in
lowercase letters, point 30.
Each trial started with a fixation cross for 1000 ms in the center of the screen. This
was followed by the presentation of the prime for 200 ms, followed by a blank screen for 100
ms, resulting in a stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) of 300 ms. Then the target appeared and
remained on the screen until a participants response. The inter-trial interval was 1500 ms.
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Participants were instructed that they will see a fixation cross, a first word, and a second word
to which they should make a lexical decision as fast and as accurately as possible. Word
responses were given with the index finger of the dominant hand, pseudoword responses
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with the subordinate hand. Feedback was given on both correct (richtig) and incorrect
(falsch) responses during the practice session, and on incorrect responses during the
experimental session.
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The experiment lasted for about 30 minutes. Participants self-administered the breaks
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between blocks, and took at least one longer break.
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Results
One participant whose error rate was very high (>16%) was removed, so that the data
of 38 participants were included in the analyses.
RT Analyses
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Only correct responses and response times between 200 ms and 1500 ms were
included in the RT data analyses. To avoid collinearity, we ran multiple Pearson correlation
analyses to assess whether distributional variables of interest (i.e. the measures of frequency,
familiarity, and neighbors of the modifier, the head, and the whole-word compound) were
correlated with each other. The correlation matrix is provided in Appendix C. In the
following analyses, only variables with a correlation coefficient lower than 0.3 were
included.
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We used R (R Core Team, 2012) and lme4 (e.g., Bates, 2005; Bates, Maechler, &
Bolker, 2012; Baayen, Davidson, & Bates, 2008) to perform linear mixed effects analysis. As
random effects, we had intercepts for participants and compounds, as well as by-participants
and by-compounds slopes for the variable Relatedness. To remove autocorrelational structure
from the residual errors (Baayen & Milin, 2010), we included the response latency and the
correctness at the preceding trial (Previous RT and Previous Correct, respectively) as control
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predictors. In all of the following analyses we included the fixed-effect factors Relatedness
and binary or rated Transparency of the modifier and the head. We further tested the
influence of various distributional variables, separately for (a) the modifier, (b) the head, (c)
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the whole-word compound, and (d) the prime (related/unrelated; related primes correspond to
the first constituent). These were number of letters and syllables, absolute and normalized
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lemma frequency, absolute and normalized familiarity, number of Coltheart and Levenshtein
neighbors. All of the distributional variables referring to frequency, familiarity, and
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neighborhood measures were log-transformed and centered (cf. Winter, 2013).

The best model fit was obtained by comparing the Akaike Information Criterion
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(AIC) statistics between models (cf. Sakamoto, Ishiguro, & Kitagawa, 1986).
Overall analysis.
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We started out with analyses that included all the data, that is, the manipulations of
both modifier and head transparency. The best model fit included the control predictors
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Previous RT and Previous Correct, and the fixed-effect factors Relatedness in interaction
with the factor Compound Frequency, and the factor Manipulated Constituent in interaction
with Head Familiarity and Modifier Frequency. Note that the model that exchanges Modifier
Frequency with Modifier Familiarity was equivalent according to the AIC statistics (with a
difference between models < 7). Given that Modifier Frequency and Modifier Familiarity are
highly correlated (see also Appendix C) and express similar features of the modifier, in the
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following we report the model with Modifier Frequency. Table 3 summarizes the effects. All
frequency measures refer to log-transformed and centered absolute lemma frequencies taken
from dlexDB.
Table 3 about here
Decision latency and accuracy at the previous trial were strong predictors of the
current targets decision latency: A faster response at the previous trial predicted a faster
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response at the current trial, and an incorrect response at the previous trial predicted a slower
response at the current trial.
The fixed-effect factor Relatedness was significant (the unrelated condition was used
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as reference level). Responses to compounds were faster following related primes than
following unrelated primes. As predicted, the lemma frequency of the whole-word compound
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had a strong facilitatory effect: The recognition of compounds was faster to higher- than to
lower-frequent compounds. However, the two factors Relatedness and Compound Frequency
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interacted indicating that related primes (i.e. constituents of the compound) facilitated the
recognition of lower-frequent compounds, while there was no priming effect for higherfrequent compounds.
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In contrast to previous findings and expectations, though, there were no effects
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whatsoever concerning the transparency of either the modifier or the head (neither the binary
nor the rating scores of the semantic association test), which is the reason why they were not
included in the model.
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The fixed-effect factor Manipulated Constituent interacted with Head Familiarity and
Modifier Frequency, indicating that higher familiarity with the head slowed responses when
the transparency of the head was manipulated, that is, when the head functioned as related
prime (while there was no effect of Head Familiarity when the modifier functioned as prime).
The second interaction between Manipulated Constituent and Modifier Frequency indicated
that higher frequency of the modifier facilitated responses when the transparency of the head
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was manipulated (i.e. when heads functioned as primes but not when modifiers functioned as
primes). The fact that the Manipulated Constituent interacts with distributional variables
describing either the modifier or the head indicates that these variables have a different
impact on the recognition of compounds depending on whether the modifier or the head were
presented as primes. In the following, we thus present separate analyses one relating to the
manipulation of the modifier transparency and the other relating to the manipulation of the
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head transparency.
Analysis of modifier transparency.

In this analysis, only the data referring to the materials with modifiers (and their
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controls) as primes were included. The best model fit included the control predictors Previous
RT and Previous Correct, and the fixed-effect factors Relatedness, Compound Frequency,
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and Modifier Frequency (the two significant frequency measures refer to log-transformed and
centered absolute lemma frequencies taken from dlexDB). Table 4 summarizes the effects.
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Table 4 about here
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As in the overall analyses described above, decision latency and accuracy at the
previous trial were strong predictors of the current targets decision latency: A faster response
at the previous trial predicted a faster response to the current trial, and an incorrect response
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at the previous trial predicted a slower response to the current trial.
As in the overall analysis, the fixed-effect factor Relatedness was significant (the
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unrelated condition was used as reference level). Responses to compounds were faster
following related primes than following unrelated primes. Also Compound Frequency was
facilitating with faster responses to higher frequent compounds than to lower frequent ones.
By contrast, the frequency of the modifier inhibited responses on related trials, as evident in
an interaction between the Modifier Frequency and the fixed-effect factor Relatedness (see
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Figure 1): If the modifier functioned as prime, responses got slower the higher-frequent the
modifier.
Figures 1 and 2 about here
In contrast to previous findings and expectations, there were, again, no effects
whatsoever concerning the transparency of the modifier (neither the binary nor the rating
scores of the semantic association test), which is the reason why they were not included in the
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model. Most importantly, the transparency of the modifier did not affect priming in that both
transparent and opaque modifiers primed their corresponding compounds relative to unrelated
primes. Figure 2 depicts this effect.
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To summarize, the best model fit included the factors latency and accuracy at the
previous trial, prime Relatedness in interaction with Modifier Frequency, and Compound
Frequency (see Table 4).
Analysis of head transparency.
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In this analysis, only the data referring to the materials with heads as primes (and their
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controls) were included. As in the overall analysis, there were two equivalent models
according to the AIC statistics, in which Modifier and Head Frequency can be exchanged by
Modifier and Head Familiarity. Obviously, the distributional variables of Frequency and
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Familiarity depict similar characteristics of the modifier and the head (see Appendix C for
collinearity of variables), so that in the following, we describe the model with Frequency.
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The best model included the control predictors latency and accuracy at the previous trial, the
fixed-effect factor Relatedness in interaction with Compound Frequency, as well as the
factors Modifier Frequency and Head Frequency. Table 5 summarizes the effects.
Table 5 about here
As in the overall analysis, responses were faster following fast responses at the
previous trial and responses were slower following incorrect responses at the previous trial.
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The fixed-effect factor Relatedness indicated that responses to compounds were faster
following related primes than following unrelated primes. Compound Frequency was
facilitatory with faster responses to higher frequent than to lower frequent compound targets.
As in the overall analysis, though, Compound Frequency interacted with priming: The
facilitatory priming effect decreased with high-frequent compound targets (see the left panel
of Figure 3).
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Figures 3 and 4 about here
Also the frequency of the modifier facilitated responses, with faster responses to
compounds that held higher-frequent modifiers (see the mid panel of Figure 3). By contrast,
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the frequency of the head inhibited responses: Responses to compounds became slower the
higher-frequent its head (see the right panel of Figure 3). As in the above analyses, the
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transparency of the head did not affect the priming effects in that both transparent and opaque
heads induced priming to their corresponding compound targets (see Figure 4).
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To summarize, the best model fit included the control predictors latency and accuracy
at the previous trial, and the fixed-effect factors Relatedness in interaction with Compound
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Frequency, as well as Modifier Frequency and Head Frequency.

Error Analyses
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Altogether, there were 135 errors out of 4256 responses to the critical items (3.17%),
55 of these were to the items Lastesel (pack donkey), Fersengeld (turn tail), Pennbruder
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(hobo), and Seitpferd (pommel horse). Since there was no time-out for responses, we
restricted the following analysis to data within 200 ms and 1500 ms, as we had done in the
RT analyses. This resulted in 130 errors out of 4098 responses (3.17%).
Note that this experiment is not powered for detecting small differences in error rates.
Nevertheless, in the following we provide a logistic mixed-effects regression model with
participants and compounds as random factors. The best model fit included the control
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predictor Previous RT (centered and standardized), the fixed-effect factor Relatedness
(relative to unrelated), as well as Compound Frequency (log-transformed and centered) and
Head Transparency. Table 6 summarized the effects.
Table 6 about here
Overall, the error analysis confirmed the patterns of the RT analyses. Fast responses
at the previous trial facilitated decisions to the current trial, indicating that there was no
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speed-accuracy trade-off. Related primes facilitated responses relative to unrelated primes,

and both higher Compound Frequency and higher Head Transparency facilitated correct
decisions (see left and right panels of Figure 5, respectively). Note that Head Transparency
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affected only decision accuracy but not latencies.

Figure 5 about here
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General Discussion
In this study, we explored the effects of meaning relatedness between German
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compound words and their morphological constituents and what these effects may reveal
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about the lexical processing of compounds. We employed an immediate unmasked priming
paradigm that is sensitive to semantic processing and used overt prime presentations to
ensure that the primes were consciously perceived. The study tested whether compound
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processing is guided not only by the semantic transparency of the constituents but also by the
morphological role (i.e., head or modifier) that the constituents have in the multimorphemic
word. The study focused on three core questions:
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1. Does the prior activation of a form corresponding to a morphological constituent

affect its processing?
2. Is constituent priming affected by the semantic transparency of a compound?
3. Do constituent effects differ depending on whether they are heads or modifiers?
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In summary, we take our results to have shown that the answer to Questions 1 and 2 is
yes and that the answer to Question 2 is no. The data that we have obtained indicate that
prior activation of a form corresponding to a morphological constituent (i.e., constituent
priming) does affect its processing. However, in this study of compound processing in
German, this constituent priming was not affected by transparency. Constituents, both
modifiers and heads, facilitated compound recognition regardless of their meaning
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relatedness to the whole-word compound. Finally, with respect to Question 3, we found that
constituent effects differ depending on whether they are heads or modifiers. These
differences emerged through the examination of how the frequency of the constituent as a
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whole word is related to its influence on the latency of compound lexical decision in this
unmasked constituent priming paradigm. Although lexical decision responses to compound
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words are generally faster when the compound is preceded by a word that corresponds to one
of its constituents (as compared to an unrelated prime word), priming effects are decreased in
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cases in which the constituent prime is a high frequency word. In the sections below we
discuss the consequences of these findings for the understanding of compound processing in
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general and compound processing in German specifically.
Whole Word Frequency Effects
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We found that compound frequency facilitated compound recognition (in the overall
analysis as well as in the analyses separate for the constituent manipulations). We take this to
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be a confirmation of an overall frequency effect in other words, this is a whole-word

frequency effect that has been very consistently reported as a characteristic of response
patterns in the lexical decision task (e.g., Scarborough, Cortese, & Scarborough, 1977). These
overall frequency effects interacted with priming such that priming effects were greater for
low frequency compounds than for high frequency compounds. We interpret this to likely
represent a maximum speed effect, so that response latencies tend to converge as they
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approach 500 milliseconds in our paradigm. Thus, whereas lower frequency compounds can
be aided by priming, higher frequency compounds which are responded to very quickly when
preceded by unrelated primes will benefit less from priming.
Modifier Frequency Effects
A somewhat different picture emerges when we consider the effects of the lexical
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frequency of the primes rather than the targets in this experiment. Crucially, modifier
frequency was facilitating when the modifier was not the prime (as is shown in unrelated
condition in the right panel of Figure 1 and both conditions in the mid panel of Figure 3). By
contrast, modifier frequency was not facilitating when the modifier was the prime (as shown
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in the related condition in the right panel of Figure 1): Low frequency modifier primes
facilitated the recognition of their corresponding compounds, whereas modifier primes that
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corresponded to high frequency words showed no significant priming.

This observation leads to the question of whether responses get slower to related
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primes as modifier frequency increases or whether responses get faster to unrelated primes as
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modifier frequency increases. It seems to us that the answer is both and we take this duality
to possibly reveal an important way in which this priming paradigm can reveal underlying
dynamics of the lexical processing system. As proposed by Libben (2014), compound
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constituents and their corresponding whole words could constitute distinct and possibly
competing morphological representations. Under this view, a compound that contains a
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modifier that corresponds to a high frequency word may generally benefit in lexical decision
because the modifier, as an often-encountered visual string, will be easy to recognize.
However, in the specific case in which it is presented as a whole word in an unmasked
priming paradigm immediately preceding a compound target, the overall recognition
advantages associated with frequency will be counteracted by the effects of lexical
competition between the string as an independent word and as a compound constituent. This
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may account for our findings as well as a similar finding reported in Italian (Marelli et al.,
2009), in which low-frequency modifiers, but not high-frequency modifiers, primed the
recognition of compounds (relative to unrelated primes).
These findings bring to the foreground the manner in which the frequency of the
initial constituent can play two roles one facilitatory, the other inhibitory. The facilitatory
role relates to the entrenchment of a representation as a recognition unit. There is
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considerable evidence that there is a beginning-to-end effect in compound processing (cf.

Experiments 1 and 5 in Taft & Forster, 1976), so that in a compound such as swordfish, the
sword component will be processed before the fish component. Whether or not the whole-
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word meaning of sword is activated during such processing, the frequency of the visual
sequence s-w-o-r-d will play a role in the ease of processing. Thus, at this level, the
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processing of dogfish would be advantaged over the processing of swordfish, simply because
a native speaker of English will have had much more experience processing the sequence d-
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o-g as compared to s-w-o-r-d (ignoring, for the purposes of explication, the additional factor
of length differences between these two strings). This advantage of the constituent as a
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recognition unit may be played off against the possible disadvantages of the activation of its
whole word meaning, because of the potential competition that such activation would create
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for the activation of compound meaning. And, there is one experimental condition in which
it is virtually certain that such whole word activation has taken place. This is the unmasked
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priming condition in which the compound is immediately preceded by the presentation of the
modifier constituent as a whole word.
A final observation concerning modifier frequency effects emerged from our analysis
of the collinearity of distributional variables. As expected, we found that many of the
variables referring to frequency, familiarity, and number of neighbors correlated. This is
unsurprising for similar measures, such as the number of neighbors counted by Coltheart and
those by Levenshtein, and in cases in which the variables measure the same constituent, such
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as head lemma frequency and head familiarity. However, we were surprised to find that many
of the variables referring to the modifier correlated with variables of the whole-word
compound (see Appendix C). For example, the lemma frequency of the modifier correlated
with the lemma frequency of the compound and with the compounds number of Coltheart
and Levenshtein neighbors. Furthermore, the familiarity of the modifier correlated with the
lemma frequency of the whole-word compound, and the familiarity of the compound
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correlated with the modifiers number of Coltheart neighbors. Such correlations occur less
between variables referring to the head and the whole-word compound, even though the head
should be predictive of the whole-word compound, given that it defines the compounds
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meaning, word-category as well as syntactic functions. Rather, these findings correspond to

assertions made by Gagn and colleagues (e.g. Gagn & Shoben, 1997; Gagn & Spalding,
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2009) that the modifier is dominant in defining the meaning of a compound because of its key
role in the determination of the conceptual relations within compounds.
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Head Frequency Effects
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The second morphological factor that we examined in the present experiment was the
influence of characteristics associated with the head. There was a priming effect indicating
that heads as primes facilitated the recognition of the whole-word compound. However, this
On
facilitatory effect diminished the higher the frequency of the whole-word compound.
Moreover, head frequency was inhibitory in both the related and unrelated conditions when
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heads were manipulated (as shown in the right panel of Figure 3). This finding (which may
have a task-specific component) suggests that the activation of the lexical item that
corresponds to the head competes with the processing of the whole compound. Importantly,
we found that this competition seems to take place regardless of whether the head was
preceded by a related or unrelated prime or was judged to be transparent or opaque. This
brings us back to the issue of transparency and lexical representation below.
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Lack of Transparency Effects with German Compounds
Altogether, the frequency effects that occurred in the processing of German
compounds are similar to those in other languages. However, with respect to semantic
transparency effects, the present findings differ from previous ones. In particular, the head
and modifier effects that we have described above hold for compounds with both transparent
and opaque modifiers (see Figure 2) as well as for compounds with transparent and opaque
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heads (see Figure 4). This finding is consistent with recent findings in English where opaque
compounds were processed as fast and as accurately as transparent compounds (cf.
Experiment 3 in Ji et al., 2011). Ji et al. (2011) interpreted these findings to indicate similar
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representations of transparent and opaque compounds in English, that is, that they activate the
same representations at the lexical level.
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The only transparency effect that we found was in error rates, such that compounds
with transparent heads were classified as real words more accurately. However, as we have
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noted above, we have to be cautious in interpreting this finding, due to the very low error
rates.
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The present findings further correspond with previous findings on complex verbs in
German where the priming induced by semantically opaque verbs was as strong as the
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priming by semantically transparent verbs (Smolka et al., 2009; Smolka et al., 2014; Smolka,
Gondan, & Rsler, 2015). That is, semantically opaque verbs like verstehen (understand)
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primed their base like stehen (stand) to the same extent as did transparent verbs like
aufstehen (stand up). Further, the priming by both types of morphological primes was
stronger than that by either purely semantically related primes like aufspringen (jump up) or
purely form-related primes like bestehlen (steal). This offered assurance that the lack of a
semantic transparency effect between semantically transparent and opaque complex verbs
was not a null effect. Also, the lack of a semantic transparency effect between semantically
transparent and opaque constituents (modifiers and heads) in the present study was not a
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null effect but rather a constituent priming effect for all types of morphologically related
constituents.
Thus, the present study provides evidence for the existence of a constituent dimension
to the lexical organization of compounds that cannot be reduced to semantic relations
between primes and targets. Most importantly, this indicates that constituent structure needs
to be incorporated in the modeling of lexical representation in German.
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It is possible that the productivity of compounding in German generates a lexical

processing style in which native speakers abstract a constituent structure regardless of the
meaning of a particular whole-word compound. If this is the case, then constituent structure
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would need to be incorporated in modeling lexical representation in German. A German

opaque compound like Drahtesel would be represented via its stems [draht] and [esel]; and a
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complex verb like understand would be represented as the base [stand] and the prefix/particle
[under]. Most of the above mentioned pre- and supralexical models cannot incorporate the
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present findings in German, especially not those regarding semantically opaque effects under
overt prime presentation. By contrast, the present findings accord with the frequency-based
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model previously suggested by Smolka and colleagues (for details see Smolka, 2005; Smolka
et al., 2009; Smolka et al., 2014; Smolka, Zwitserlood, & Rsler, 2007).
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In sum, our findings indicate that compound constituents and their corresponding
independent words compete in compound processing and that the frequencies of the
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constituents and whole-word compound affect compound processing as they do in other

languages. However, our findings also indicate that lexical representation in German refers to
the constituents of a compound, regardless of semantic transparency. This indicates that
constituent structure represents an important aspect of language processing in German and
must be incorporated in the lexical representation of German words. The productivity of
compounding in German may be related to this special characteristic.
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It is possible that different languages vary in the extent to which they drive the
development of such a representational level. In terms of the ecological view (e.g., Bick,
Goelman, & Frost, 2011; Frost, 2009; Frost, 2012), the specific linguistic properties of a
given language modulate the way it is processed, even though some language characteristics
are universal. This view may well describe the situation with our German data: Even though
German shares many features with other Indo-European, and in particular Indo-Germanic
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languages, specific properties drive the development of a representational level that

encompasses constituent structure.
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Author Notes
This study was supported by the Ontario Baden-Wrttemberg Faculty Mobility Program
financed by the State Ministry of Baden-Wrttemberg for Sciences, Research and Arts, as
well as by the Volkswagen Foundation, Grant FP 561/11, awarded to Eva Smolka.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Eva Smolka, Department of
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Linguistics, University of Konstanz, 78457 Konstanz, Germany. Email: eva.smolka@unikonstanz.de
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Figure Captions
Figure 1. The left panel displays the effect of compound frequency on lexical decision
latencies to compound targets and the right panel displays the effect of modifier frequency.
Figure 2. The effect of prime relatedness on lexical decision latencies to compound
targets containing either transparent or opaque modifiers. In all cases, the related prime is the
modifier of the compound target. The y-bars indicate the standard error of the mean.
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latencies to compound targets. The middle panel displays the effect of modifier frequency
and the right panel displays the effect of head frequency.
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Figure 4. The effect of prime relatedness on lexical decision latencies to compound

targets containing either transparent or opaque heads. In all cases, the related prime is the
rR
head of the compound target. The y-bars indicate the standard error of the mean.
ev
accuracy rates for compound targets and the right panel displays the effect of head
transparency on lexical decision accuracy rates.
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Table 1
Stimulus Characteristics of Compound Targets and their Primes in the Manipulation
Regarding the Transparency of the Modifier.
Transparent
Opaque
Related
Unrelated
Related
Unrelated
Hund
Rest
Huhn
Zaun
28
28
28
28
Lemma
139
147
50.5
58.9
Letters
4.8
4.8
4.9
4.9
1.6
1.6
1.5
1.5
5.7
2.7
Prime Example
N
Syllables
Rating
Lemma
rR
Target Example
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Hundeauge
Hhnerauge
1.0
7.6
10.3
Syllables
3.3
10.1
3.1
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Letters
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Note. N = number of items used, Lemma = mean lemma frequency per one million, taken
from CELEX (Baayen, Piepenbrock, & Van Rijn, 1993), Letters = mean number of letters,
On
Syllables = mean number of syllables, Rating = mean rating score of meaning relatedness
between prime and target (1 = completely unrelated, 7 = strongly related).
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Table 2
Stimulus Characteristics of Compound Targets and their Primes in the Manipulation
Regarding the Transparency of the Head.
Transparent
Opaque
Related
Unrelated
Related
Unrelated
Esel
Papa
Esel
Papa
28
28
28
28
Lemma
52.3
56.4
52.3
56.4
Letters
4.8
4.8
4.8
4.8
1.6
1.6
1.6
1.6
5.7
1.4
2.7
1.2
Prime Example
N
Syllables
Rating
Lemma
rR
Target Example
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Lastesel
Drahtesel
1.1
1.9
10.3
Syllables
3.3
9.9
3.0
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Letters
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Note. N = number of items used, Lemma = mean lemma frequency per one million, taken
from CELEX (Baayen, Piepenbrock, & Van Rijn, 1993), Letters = mean number of letters,
On
Syllables = mean number of syllables, Rating = mean rating score of meaning relatedness
between prime and target (1 = completely unrelated, 7 = strongly related).
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Page 45 of 64
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Table 3
Fixed Effects of the Predictors in the Linear Mixed-Effect Model for Response Latencies in the Overall Analysis including the Manipulations of the
Fo
Transparency of both Modifier and Head.
rP
(Intercept)
ee
Previous RT
rR
Previous Correct (Incorrect)

Relatedness (Related)
Compound Frequency
Manipulated Constituent (Head)
Modifier Frequency
ev
Estimate
Std. Error
t value
576.600
18.03
31.982
2.00E-16 ***
0.084
0.01
9.36
2.00E-16 ***
50.430
9.59
5.261
1.51E-07 ***
-51.640
5.84
-8.851
5.59E-11 ***
-22.840
3.82
-5.975
3.41E-08 ***
5.861
10.51
0.558
0.57823
2.909
5.69
0.512
0.6101
3.06
0.34
0.73453
6.87
-1.822
0.07149 .
1.946
0.05451 .
3.093
0.00254 **
iew
1.042
Head Familiarity
Manipulated Constituent (Head) x Modifier Frequency
-12.510
On
7.640
2.47
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Modifier Frequency x Head Familiarity
-0.789
2.57
-0.307
0.75985
Manipulated Constituent x Modifier Frequency x Head Familiarity
-0.785
3.90
-0.202
0.84069
Manipulated Constituent (Head) x Head Familiarity

Relatedness (Related) x Compound Frequency
11.100
5.70
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Note. Previous RT = latency at the previous trial, Previous Correct = accuracy at the previous trial (relative to correct), Relatedness = prime
relatedness (relative to unrelated), Compound Frequency = lemma frequency of the compound, Manipulated Constituent = refers to the
Fo
manipulation of the transparency of the modifier or that of the head (baseline = manipulation of the modifier), Modifier Frequency = lemma
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frequency of the modifier, Head Familiarity = familiarity of the head, all frequencies taken from dlexDB (Heister et al.. 2011); significance codes:
*** < .001, ** < .01, * < .05, . < 1. The comparable analysis using Modifier Familiarity instead of Modifier Frequency yields a t-value of -3.081
and a p-level of 0.00269.
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On
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Table 4
Fixed Effects of the Predictors in the Linear Mixed-Effect Model for the Response Latencies
in the Manipulation of the Modifier Transparency.
Estimate
Std. Error
t value
564.47227
18.00143
31.357
2.00E-16 ***
0.09149
0.01232
7.424
1.68E-13 ***
46.53652
13.60687
3.420
0.000639 ***
Relatedness
-46.51303
7.13114
-6.523
2.87E-07 ***
Compound Frequency
-12.54499
4.13613
-3.033
0.003815 **
-7.05732
6.38055
-1.106
9.9292
4.30025
2.309
(Intercept)
Previous RT
Previous Correct
Modifier Frequency
Relatedness x
0.27372
0.0252 *
rR
Modifier Frequency
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Note. Previous RT = latency at the previous trial, Previous Correct = accuracy at previous trial
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(relative to correct), Relatedness = prime relatedness (relative to unrelated), Compound

Frequency = lemma frequency of the compound, Modifier Frequency = lemma frequency of
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the compound, all frequencies taken from dlexDB (Heister et al., 2011); significance codes:
*** < .001, ** < .01, * < .05, ns. = nonsignificant
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Table 5
Fixed Effects of the Predictors in the Linear Mixed-Effect Model for Response Latencies in
the Manipulation of the Head Transparency.
Estimate
Std. Error
t value
585.05277
20.72067
28.235
2.00E-16 ***
Previous RT
0.08853
0.01312
6.748
2.00E-11 ***
Previous Correct
52.7834
13.61803
3.876
0.00011 ***
Relatedness
-57.27509
7.94887
-7.205
1.61E-08 ***
Compound Frequency
-27.46286
6.00309
-4.575
3.00E-05 ***
-9.8502
4.21608
-2.336
0.02358 *
14.02217
6.38876
2.195
0.03297 *
3.98693
2.122
0.03873 *
(Intercept)
Modifier Frequency
Head Frequency
Relatedness x
Compound Frequency
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ee
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Fo
8.45846
ev
Note. Previous RT = latency at the previous trial, Previous Correct = accuracy at the previous
trial (relative to correct), Relatedness = prime relatedness (relative to unrelated), Compound
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Frequency = lemma frequency of the compound, Modifier Frequency = lemma frequency of
the modifier, Head Frequency = lemma frequency of the head, all frequencies taken from
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dlexDB (Heister et al., 2011); significance codes: *** < .001, ** < .01, * < .05.
The comparable analysis using (Modifier and Head) Familiarity instead of (Modifier and
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Page 48 of 64
Head) Frequency yields a t-value of -2.301 and a p-level of 0.025663 for the effect of
Modifier Familiarity, and a t-value of 2.864 and a p-level of 0.006182 for the effect of Head
Familiarity.
Page 49 of 64
Table 6
Fixed Effects of the Predictors in the Linear Mixed-Effect Model for Response Accuracy in
the Overall Analysis including the Manipulations of the Transparency of both Modifier and
Head.
Estimate Std. Error z value
(Intercept)
3.0949
0.5635
5.493 3.96E-08 ***
Previous RT
0.4514
0.1479
3.052
0.00227 **
Relatedness
0.4526
0.201
2.252
0.02434 *
Compound Frequency
0.3179
0.107
2.971
0.00297 **
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0.1183
2.364
0.01809 *
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Head Transparency
0.2796
Note. Previous RT = latency at the previous trial (centered and standardized), Relatedness =
rR
prime relatedness (relative to unrelated), Compound Frequency = lemma frequency of the

compound, Head Transparency = transparency of the head as measured in the semantic
ev
association test (1 = unrelated, 7 = highly related with the meaning of the whole-word
compound), all frequencies taken from dlexDB (Heister et al., 2011); significance codes: ***
< .001, ** < .01, * < .05.
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Figure 1
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Figure 2
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Figure 3
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Figure 4
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Appendix A
Stimulus Materials in the Manipulation of the Modifier Transparency with Modifiers as Related Primes and Compounds as Targets
Target
Fo
Compound
rP
Spieleabend (board game party)
Modifier
Transparency
TT
Sonnabend (Saturday)
Related Prime
OO
Rating
StD
Unrelated Prime
Transparency Score
Spiel (game)
5,8
1,7
Recht (law)
Sonne (sun)
1,86
1,5
Essen (food)
5,5
1,7
Ruhe (rest)
ee
rR
Broarbeit (office work)
TT
Schwarzarbeit (black labor, illegal
OT
Schwarz (black)
2,4
1,5
Fleisch (meat)
Hundeauge (dogs eye)
TT
Hund (dog)
1,7
Rest (left-over)
Hhnerauge (clavus, corn)
OO
Huhn (chicken)
2,7
1,1
Zaun (fence)
Apfelbaum (apple tree)
TT
Apfel (apple)
iew
5,89
Schlagbaum (barrier, toll bar)
OO
Schlag (blow, beat)
Hosenbein (trouser leg)
TO
Hose (trousers)
Schlsselbein (clavicle)
OT
Teebeutel (tea bag)

Windbeutel (cream puff)
employment)
Bro (office)
ev
6,3
0,9
1,4
Herbst (autumn)
On
Forum (forum)
5,2
1,6
Kino (cinema)
Schlssel (key)
2,57
1,7
Transport (transport)
TT
Tee (tea)
6,44
0,9
Hut (hat)
OO
Wind (wind)
2,6
1,4
Dank (thanks)
ly
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
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25
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34
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36
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48
Page 56 of 64
Wasserdampf (steam)
TT
Wasser (water)
5,22
2,2
Kritik (criticism)
Kohldampf (ravenous hunger)
OO
Kohl (cabbage)
2,5
1,8
Flug (flight)
TT
Huhn (chicken)
6,5
0,7
Zaun (fence)
Spiegel (mirror)
2,67
2,2
Trainer (trainer)
Last (burden, weight)
5,88
Wein (wine)
Maul (mouth, jaws)
2,4
1,7
Haft (arrest)
Papier (paper)
1,6
Morgen (morning)
2,4
1,3
Truhe (trunk, chest)
1,5
Harz (resin)
1,6
Druck (pressure)
Hhnerei (hens egg)

Spiegelei (fried egg)
Fo
Lastesel (pack donkey)
rP
OT
TT
ee
Maulesel (mule)
OT
Papiergeld (paper money)
TT
Fersengeld (to turn tail)
OO
Ferse (heel)
Leidensgesicht (sorrowed face)
TT
Leid (harm)
Milchgesicht (baby face)
OT
Milch (milk)
Mittagshitze (midday heat)
TT
Mittag (noon)
iew
Affenhitze (scorching heat)
OT
Affe (monkey)
Blumenkranz (floral wreath)
TT
Blume (flower)
On
Rosenkranz (beads, rosary)
OO
Rose (rose)
Apfelkuchen (apple pie)
TT
Apfel (apple)
rR
ev
5,1
2,1
Turner (gymnast)
2,78
Sofa (sofa)
5,5
1,7
Tante (aunt)
1,3
Mode (fashion)
6,7
0,5
Forum (forum)
ly
Page 57 of 64
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47
48
Baumkuchen (variety of spit cake)
OT
Baum (tree)
3,14
2,1
Meer (sea)
Handkuss (kiss on the hand)
TT
Hand (hand)
5,75
1,3
Herr (gentleman, Mr.)
OO
Neger (Negro)
3,11
Sauna (sauna)
Heimat (home)
6,1
1,9
Praxis (practice)
Vater (father)
3,2
2,1
April (april)
Winter (winter)
6,86
0,4
Chemie (chemistry)
Deck (deck)
2,6
Minze (mint)
1,6
Bonn (Bonn)
2,33
1,1
Sge (saw)
5,1
Onkel (uncle)
Fo
Negerkuss (chocolate marshmallow)

Heimatland (homeland)
Vaterland (fatherland)
rP
TT
OT
ee
Wintermantel (winter coat)
TT
Deckmantel (pretense)
OO
Kindsmutter (childs mother)
TT
Kind (child)
Rabenmutter (uncaring mother)
OT
Rabe (raven)
Wollmtze (woolen hat)
TT
Wolle (wool)
Pudelmtze (bobble hat)
OT
Pudel (poodle)
iew
Weizennudel (wheat noodle)
TT
Weizen (wheat)
Glasnudel (glass noodle)
OT
Glas (glass)
On
Pferdeohren (horse ears)
TT
Pferd (horse)
Segelohren (jug ears)
OT
Segel (sail)
rR
ev
2,6
1,6
Lasso (lasso)
5,2
1,5
Saison (season)
3,13
2,2
Kurs (course)
5,8
1,6
Reich (realm, empire)
2,22
1,3
Kopie (copy)
ly
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
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Page 58 of 64
Zeitpunkt (point in time)
TO
Zeit (time)
6,6
0,5
Welt (world)
Standpunkt (point of view)
OO
Stand (stand, booth)
3,3
1,6
Ernst (severity, sobriety)
TT
Tomate (tomato)
5,9
1,2
Kanone (cannon)
Kopf (head)
2,56
1,9
Teil (part)
Baum (tree)
6,29
1,1
Meer (sea)
Schlag (blow, stroke)
2,44
1,9
Herbst (autumn)
Wasser (water)
4,8
1,5
Kritik (criticism)
2,7
1,3
Summe (sum)
5,67
1,6
Mann (man)
2,8
2,4
Druck (pressure)
Tomatensalat (tomato salad)

Kopfsalat (lettuce)
Fo
rP
Baumschatten (a trees shadow)
OT
TT
ee
Schlagschatten (shadow)
OT
Wasserspinne (water spider)
TT
Vogelspinne (bird-eating spider)
OT
Vogel (bird)
Landstrae (country road)
TT
Land (land)
Milchstrae (Milky Way)
OO
Milch (milk)
Drogensucht (drug addiction)
TT
Droge (drug)
iew
Eifersucht (jealousy)
OO
Eifer (zeal, fervor)
Waldweg (forest road)
TT
Wald (forest)
On
Holzweg (to be off the track)
OO
Holz (wood)
rR
ev
5,5
1,7
Taste (key, button)
3,22
1,6
Magen (stomach)
1,2
Graf (count, earl)
2,9
1,9
Gold (gold)
ly
Notes. Rating score = mean score of meaning relatedness between modifier and target (1 = completely unrelated, 7 = strongly related); StD =
standard deviation of the rating score.
Page 59 of 64
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Appendix B
Stimulus Materials in the Manipulation of the Head Transparency with Heads as Related Primes and Compounds as Targets
Target
Fo
Compound
Related Prime
Head
Rating StD Unrelated Prime
Rating StD
Transp.
Score
Score
Auge (eye)
1,9
Juli (july)
1,11
0,5
Fettauge (grease drop)
rP
Auge (eye)
2,5
1,7
Juli (july)
1,11
0,5
Zwillingsbruder (twin brother)
TT
Bruder (brother)
5,3
1,7
Presse (the press)
Pennbruder (hobo)
OO
Bruder (brother)
3,29
1,9
Presse (the press)
1,18
0,4
Mutterbrust (mothers breast)
TT
Brust (breast)
5,75
1,3
Streit (argument)
Armbrust (crossbow)
OO
Brust (breast)
Streit (argument)
Lastesel (drudge)
TT
Esel (donkey)
5,7
1,1
Papa (dad)
1,6
Drahtesel (bike)
OO
Esel (donkey)
2,75
Papa (dad)
1,09
0,3
Weizenfeld (cornfield)
TT
Feld (field)
5,6
1,9
Luft (air)
1,35
0,7
Gesichtsfeld (visual field)
TO
Feld (field)
2,6
1,2
Luft (air)
1,11
0,3
Gemsegarten (kitchen garden)
TT
Garten (garden)
5,71
2,1
Metall (metal)
1,18
0,4
Kindergarten (kindergarten)
TO
Garten (garden)
3,22
Metall (metal)
1,11
0,3
Hundeauge (dogs eye)
Transparency
TT
TO
ee
rR
ev
iew
On
ly
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2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
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48
Page 60 of 64
Wasserhahn (tap, faucet)
TT
Hahn (tap, cock)
4,11
2,2
Golf (golf)
1,32
0,6
Geldhahn (source of money)
TO
Hahn (tap, cock)
2,8
1,6
Golf (golf)
1,16
0,5
TT
Hals (throat)
4,8
Bier (beer)
1,4
1,4
Hals (throat)
2,5
0,6
Bier (beer)
1,09
0,3
Hof (yard)
5,56
1,7
Ruf (reputation)
1,26
0,5
Hof (yard)
2,8
1,3
Ruf (reputation)
1,53
1,2
Kanone (cannon)
5,8
1,6
Mosaik (mosaic)
2,89
1,6
Mosaik (mosaic)
Giraffenhals (giraffes neck)

Geizhals (miser)
Bauernhof (farm)
Fo
rP
TO
TT
ee
Gerichtshof (courthouse)
TO
Schiffskanone (ship cannon)
TT
Sportskanone (sporting ace)
TO
Kanone (cannon)
Ziegenkse (goat cheese)
TT
Kse (cheese)
Leberkse (beef and pork loaf)
TO
Kse (cheese)
Apfelkuchen (apple pie)
TT
Kuchen (cake)
iew
Mutterkuchen (afterbirth)
OO
Weltmeer (sea, ocean)
rR
ev
6,71
0,5
Uran (uranium)
2,8
1,9
Uran (uranium)
6,9
Kuchen (cake)
TT
Meer (sea)
6,4
Lichtermeer (sea of lights)
TO
Meer (sea)
Kindsmutter (childs mother)
TT
Mutter (mother)
On
0,3
Wsche (laundry)
1,4
Wsche (laundry)
0,5
Glas (glass)
1,16
0,5
2,67
1,4
Glas (glass)
1,42
0,7
6,14
1,1
Lehrer (teacher)
1,36
0,5
ly
Page 61 of 64
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48
Schraubenmutter (screw-nut)
TO
Mutter (mother)
1,5
Lehrer (teacher)
1,1
0,4
Metzgermeister (master butcher)
TT
Meister (master)
5,1
1,4
Tochter (daughter)
1,05
0,2
Waldmeister (sweet woodruff)
OO
Meister (master)
2,84
1,8
Tochter (daughter)
Mhle (mill)
6,4
Suppe (soup)
Mhle (mill)
2,6
1,3
Suppe (soup)
Nudel (noodle)
5,67
1,2
Welpe (puppy)
Nudel (noodle)
2,14
1,8
Welpe (puppy)
Sieb (sieve, filter)
1,18
0,4
Windmhle (windmill)
Fo
Zwickmhle (quagmire, dilemma)
rP
TT
OO
ee
Weizennudel (wheat noodle)
TT
Giftnudel (spitfire)
TO
Erdnuss (peanut)
TT
Nuss (nut)
Kopfnuss (clout, head stroke)
TO
Nuss (nut)
Pferdeohr (horses ear)
TT
Ohr (ear)
Eselsohr (dog ear)
OO
Ohr (ear)
iew
Wildpferd (wild horse)
TT
Seitpferd (pommel horse)
rR
ev
2,5
Sieb (sieve, filter)
1,05
0,2
4,78
1,6
Bau (construction)
3,33
1,9
Bau (construction)
1,05
0,2
Pferd (horse)
5,75
1,3
Blatt (leaf, sheet)
OO
Pferd (horse)
2,88
1,2
Blatt (leaf, sheet)
1,06
0,2
Autorad (cars wheel)
TT
Rad (wheel)
5,75
1,3
Typ (type)
1,64
1,2
Pfauenrad (peacocks fan)
TO
Rad (wheel)
2,9
0,7
Typ (type)
1,25
0,9
On
ly
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3
4
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Page 62 of 64
Faustschlag (punch)
TT
4,67
1,9
Herbst (autumn)
1,05
0,2
Ratschlag (advice)
TO
2,2
1,1
Herbst (autumn)
1,05
0,2
TT
Sohle (sole, bottom)
6,86
0,4
Ruder (rudder)
Sohle (sole, bottom)
2,6
1,3
Ruder (rudder)
1,25
1,1
Spinne (spider)
5,78
1,9
Kredit (credit)
Spinne (spider)
2,75
1,5
Kredit (credit)
Welle (wave)
6,86
0,4
Engel (angel)
1,36
0,8
2,1
Engel (angel)
1,3
1,1
Schuhsohle (sole of a shoe)

Talsohle (bed of the valley)
Fo
rP
Wasserspinne (water spider)
TO
TT
ee
Wschespinne (rotary clothesline)
TO
Wasserwelle (water wave)
TT
Hitzewelle (heat wave)
TO
Welle (wave)
Wortwitz (wordplay)
TT
Witz (joke)
Wahnwitz (absurdity, lunacy)
TO
Witz (joke)
Backenzahn (molar tooth)
TT
Zahn (tooth)
iew
Lwenzahn (hawkbit)
OO
Schlafzimmer (bedroom)
Frauenzimmer (dame, bower)
rR
ev
5,6
1,2
Burg (castle)
1,1
0,3
1,6
Burg (castle)
1,32
0,6
6,7
Zahn (tooth)
2,5
TT
Zimmer (room)
OO
Zimmer (room)
On
0,5
Dach (roof)
1,1
Dach (roof)
1,11
0,3
6,57
0,5
Jugend (youth)
2,27
1,6
2,33
2,1
Jugend (youth)
2,68
1,7
ly
Notes. Rating score = mean score of meaning relatedness between prime and target (1 = completely unrelated, 7 = strongly related); StD = standard
deviation of the rating score.
Page 63 of 64
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48
Appendix C
Correlation Matrix of the Distributional Variables Tested.
Fo
M-Lemma H-Lemma C-Lemma M-Fam
rP
H-Fam
C-Fam M-Leven H-Leven C-Leven
M-Lemma
H-Lemma
0,081
C-Lemma
0,280
0,249
M-Familiarity
0,678
0,187
0,269
H-Familiarity
0,042
0,531
0,180
0,140
C-Familiarity
0,407
0,218
0,364
0,779
0,183
M-Levenshtein
0,494
-0,060
0,121
0,189
-0,004
0,050
H-Levenshtein
-0,059
0,352
0,083
-0,139
-0,223
-0,024
-0,127
C-Levenshtein
0,318
0,291
0,691
0,312
0,221
0,349
0,138
M-Coltheart
0,437
-0,075
0,099
0,140
-0,006
0,006
H-Coltheart
-0,081
0,260
0,071
-0,186
-0,283
C-Coltheart
0,265
0,257
0,495
0,209
0,170
ee
1
rR
M-Colt
H-Colt
C-Colt
ev
1
iew
1
0,972
On
-0,075
-0,110
0,213
0,109
0,115
0,090
0,976
ly
0,073
-0,128
0,157
0,757
0,087
0,131
-0,153
1
2
3
4
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Page 64 of 64
Notes. M-Lemma = lemma frequency of the modifier, H-Lemma = lemma frequency of the head, C-Lemma = lemma frequency of the whole-word
compound, M-Fam = familiarity of the modifier, H-Fam = familiarity of the head, C-Fam = familiarity of the whole-word compound, M-Leven =
Fo
number of Levenshtein neighbors of the modifier, H-Leven = number of Levenshtein neighbors of the head, C-Leven = number of Levenshtein
rP
neighbors of the whole-word compound, M-Colt = number of Coltheart neighbors of the modifier, H- Colt = number of Coltheart neighbors of the
head, C- Colt = number of Coltheart neighbors of the whole-word compound. All measures refer to absolute counts from dlexDB (Heister et al.,
ee
2011) that were log-transformed, correlations higher than 0.3 are bold.
rR
ev
iew
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Language, Cognition & Neuroscience

Date Submitted by the Author:

Smolka, Eva; University of Konstanz, Linguistics

Complete List of Authors:

Language, Cognition and Neuroscience

Can You Wash off the Hogwash? Semantic Transparency

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/plcp Email: LCPadmin@csl.psychol.cam.ac.uk

Language, Cognition & Neuroscience

THE PROCESSING OF GERMAN COMPOUNDS

Constituents in the Processing of German Compounds

Eva Smolka and 2Gary Libben

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/plcp Email: LCPadmin@csl.psychol.cam.ac.uk

Language, Cognition & Neuroscience

THE PROCESSING OF GERMAN COMPOUNDS

transparent (Hund, dog) or opaque (Huhn, hen) modifier, respectively, or unrelated

constituents and their corresponding independent words compete in compound processing.

transparency, indicating that lexical representation in German incorporates constituent

Keywords: (5 keywords) morphological priming; compound processing; constituent priming;

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Language, Cognition & Neuroscience

THE PROCESSING OF GERMAN COMPOUNDS

shovel-fish and bronze-fish.

Unlike derivational affixation, compounding rarely involves selection restrictions,

ness in English will be restricted to attachment to preceding adjectives, a lexemic element

swordfish, goldfish, and even a rock music band called Deadfishbabies).

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/plcp Email: LCPadmin@csl.psychol.cam.ac.uk

Language, Cognition & Neuroscience

THE PROCESSING OF GERMAN COMPOUNDS

A key reason for the centrality of compound processing in modeling morphological

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/plcp Email: LCPadmin@csl.psychol.cam.ac.uk

Language, Cognition & Neuroscience

THE PROCESSING OF GERMAN COMPOUNDS

by considering, as an example, the family of compound words bound together by the

mountain in compounds such as mountaintop, mountain magazine, and mountain boots. In

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/plcp Email: LCPadmin@csl.psychol.cam.ac.uk

Language, Cognition & Neuroscience

THE PROCESSING OF GERMAN COMPOUNDS

corresponded to high frequency words, constituent priming was indistinguishable from

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/plcp Email: LCPadmin@csl.psychol.cam.ac.uk

Language, Cognition & Neuroscience

THE PROCESSING OF GERMAN COMPOUNDS

Modifier-Head and Semantic Transparency Effects in the Online Processing of Compounds

In the modern psycholinguistic study of compound processing, semantic transparency

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/plcp Email: LCPadmin@csl.psychol.cam.ac.uk

Language, Cognition & Neuroscience

THE PROCESSING OF GERMAN COMPOUNDS

increases response latency.

semantic transparency in compound processing, it has become evident that processing is

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/plcp Email: LCPadmin@csl.psychol.cam.ac.uk

Language, Cognition & Neuroscience

THE PROCESSING OF GERMAN COMPOUNDS

departmental council meeting). It is also worthy of note that compounding in German is

and Hhnersuppe (chicken + interfix + soup = chicken soup).

Language, Cognition & Neuroscience

THE PROCESSING OF GERMAN COMPOUNDS

psycholinguistic investigation of compound reading. In German, compounding is a highly

is also consistent in its visual representation of compounds so that biconstituent and

Question 1: Does the prior activation of a form corresponding to a morphological

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Language, Cognition & Neuroscience

THE PROCESSING OF GERMAN COMPOUNDS

facilitating effects of constituent priming. By contrast, we expected that compound frequency

Question 2: Is constituent priming affected by the semantic transparency of a