Compound word processing: Orthographic, Morphological, Semantic, and Conceptual Effects

认知生产力是将已知的概念和单词组合成新的意义和语言结构的能力，是人类最重要的能力之一。我研究的最终目标是更好地理解概念和语言系统，以及这些系统如何导致人类的生产力。我的重点是复合词（例如，snowball, hogwash）和修饰名词短语（例如，snow bucket, hog barn）。这些小的语言结构为理解语言和概念系统的过程和信息来源提供了一个重要的测试案例，因为它们涉及到从组成语素/单词中构建新的意义。我的工作研究了复合词处理与修饰语-名词短语处理之间的关系，并证明了复合词处理，就像修饰语-名词短语处理一样，涉及到根据复合词的组成成分创造一个富有成效的意义的必要尝试，即使它不合适并且有处理成本。重要的是，复合词的意思并不是简单地由词汇系统激活或检索的。意义构建的尝试要求在复合词中识别成分，因此在复合词处理中，了解形态和语义信息如何与正字法（例如字母识别）信息源相互作用是至关重要的。同样，意义创造涉及协调不同的概念表征，因此概念过程的作用至关重要，在我的研究计划之外，很少在复合词研究中进行研究。该研究计划建立在我之前的研究基础上，研究形态和语义信息如何影响复合词处理并允许意义构建尝试。我将研究正字法和概念信息的作用，以及它们与语义和形态信息的关系，在复合字处理中。一般的方法是比较具有不同语义或概念特征的复合词，或者将复合词与非复合词进行比较，例如伪复合词（看起来像复合词的词，例如carpet），这使我能够研究信息源及其相互作用。这些比较将在不同的任务中进行检查，这些任务集中在单词获取、单词生成或正字法判断上，这使我能够研究处理的不同方面。这项工作最终将导致一个完整的复合字处理理论，包括从正字法过程，通过形态学和语义学，到概念过程的信息来源。理解生产力，即使是在这些最小的语言结构中，也是极其复杂和困难的。然而，这项工作将极大地扩展我们对生产意义结构的了解，以及这种结构如何继续影响语言和概念系统。

Cognitive productivity, the ability to combine known concepts and words into new meanings and linguistic constructions, is one of the most important human abilities. The ultimate goal of my research is to better understand the conceptual and language systems, and how these systems lead to human productivity. My focus has been on compound words (e.g., snowball, hogwash) and modifier-noun phrases (e.g., snow bucket, hog barn). These small linguistic constructions provide an important test case for understanding processes and sources of information from the language and conceptual systems because they involve the construction of new meanings from the constituent morphemes/words. My work has examined how compound word processing relates to modifier-noun phrase processing, and has demonstrated that compound word processing, like modifier-noun phrase processing, involves an obligatory attempt at creating a productive meaning based on the constituents of the compound word, even when it is not appropriate and has a processing cost. Critically, compound word meanings are not simply activated or retrieved by the lexical system. Attempts at meaning construction require that the constituents be identified in the compound word and therefore it is critical to know how morphological and semantic information interact with orthographic (e.g., letter identification) sources of information in compound word processing. Similarly, meaning creation involves coordinating different conceptual representations, so the role of conceptual processes is critical, and rarely studied in compound word research, outside my research program. The proposed research program builds on my previous research investigating how morphological and semantic information impact compound word processing and allow meaning construction attempts. I will investigate the roles of orthography and conceptual information, and their relation to semantic and morphological information, in compound word processing. The general approach is to compare compound words with different semantic or conceptual characteristics, or to compare compound words with non-compounds, such as pseudo-compounds (words that only look like compounds, e.g., carpet), which allows me to investigate the information sources and their interactions. These comparisons will be examined across various tasks that focus on word access, word production, or orthographic judgments, allowing me to investigate different aspects of processing. This work will ultimately lead to a full theory of compound word processing, incorporating sources of information from orthographic processes, through morphology and semantics, to conceptual processes. Understanding productivity, even in these smallest linguistic constructions, is dauntingly complex and difficult. However, this work will greatly extend what is known about productive meaning construction, and about how such constructions continue to influence the language and conceptual systems.