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

认知生产力是人类最重要的能力之一，它是将已知的概念和词汇联合收割机组合成新的意义和语言结构的能力。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，雪桶、猪舍）。这些小的语言结构为理解来自语言和概念系统的信息的过程和来源提供了重要的测试案例，因为它们涉及从构成语素/词构建新的含义。我的工作已经研究了复合词处理如何与修饰语-名词短语处理相关，并证明了复合词处理，如修饰语-名词短语处理，涉及基于复合词的成分创造生产性意义的强制性尝试，即使它不合适并且具有处理成本。关键是，复合词的意义不是简单地由词汇系统激活或检索的。尝试意义构建需要在复合词中识别成分，因此了解形态和语义信息如何与正字法相互作用是至关重要的（例如，字母识别）复合词处理中的信息源。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，很少在复合词研究中研究，除了我的研究计划。拟议的研究计划建立在我以前的研究调查形态和语义信息如何影响复合词处理，并允许意义建设的尝试。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，在复合词处理。一般的方法是比较具有不同语义或概念特征的复合词，或者比较复合词与非复合词，如伪复合词（只看起来像复合词的词，例如，地毯），这使我能够调查信息来源及其相互作用。这些比较将在各种任务中进行检查，这些任务侧重于单词访问，单词生产或正字法判断，使我能够研究处理的不同方面。这项工作将最终导致一个完整的复合词处理理论，将信息来源从正字法的过程中，通过形态和语义，概念的过程。理解生产力，即使是在这些最小的语言结构中，也是令人生畏的复杂和困难。然而，这项工作将大大扩展什么是已知的生产性意义建设，以及如何这样的建设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.