The role of semantic transparency in the processing and representation of Dutch compounds

Abstract

The processing and representation of Dutch compound words was investigated as a function of their semantic transparency. The first experiment, with immediate partial repetition of the constituents of the compounds, provided clear evidence for the sensitivity of the lexical processing system to morphological complexity, independent of semantic transparency. This was confirmed in a second experiment, with semantic priming of the meaning of the constituents. Unlike compounds that are semantically fully or partially transparent, completely opaque compounds did not prime the associates of their constituents. The results for completely opaque compounds were the same as for monomorphemic words that accidentally contain two existing morphemes of the language. It is concluded that completely opaque compounds are not connected with their constituents at the level of semantic representations.