TY - JOUR
T1 - Insight into the structure of compound words among speakers of Chinese and English
AU - Jie, Zhang
AU - Anderson, Richard C.
AU - Qiuying, Wang
AU - Packard, Jerome
AU - Xinchun, Wu
AU - Shan, Tang
AU - Xiaoling, Ke
PY - 2012/10
Y1 - 2012/10
N2 - Knowledge of compound word structures in Chinese and English was investigated, comparing 435 Chinese and 258 Americans, including second, fourth, and sixth graders, and college undergraduates. As anticipated, the results revealed that Chinese speakers performed better on a word structure analogy task than their English-speaking counterparts. Also, as anticipated, speakers of both languages performed better on noun + noun and verb + particle compounds, which are more productive in their respective languages than noun + verb and verb + noun compounds, which are less productive. Both Chinese and English speakers performed significantly better on novel compounds than on familiar compounds, most likely because familiar compounds are lexicalized and do not invite decomposition into constituents.
AB - Knowledge of compound word structures in Chinese and English was investigated, comparing 435 Chinese and 258 Americans, including second, fourth, and sixth graders, and college undergraduates. As anticipated, the results revealed that Chinese speakers performed better on a word structure analogy task than their English-speaking counterparts. Also, as anticipated, speakers of both languages performed better on noun + noun and verb + particle compounds, which are more productive in their respective languages than noun + verb and verb + noun compounds, which are less productive. Both Chinese and English speakers performed significantly better on novel compounds than on familiar compounds, most likely because familiar compounds are lexicalized and do not invite decomposition into constituents.
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U2 - 10.1017/S0142716411000555
DO - 10.1017/S0142716411000555
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84869415890
SN - 0142-7164
VL - 33
SP - 753
EP - 779
JO - Applied Psycholinguistics
JF - Applied Psycholinguistics
IS - 4
ER -