G. Libben, SEMANTIC TRANSPARENCY IN THE PROCESSING OF COMPOUNDS - CONSEQUENCES FOR REPRESENTATION, PROCESSING, AND IMPAIRMENT, Brain and language, 61(1), 1998, pp. 30-44
Citations number
15
Categorie Soggetti
Language & Linguistics","Psychology, Experimental",Neurosciences
The role of semantic transparency in morphological processing in gener
al and in compound processing in particular is examined. It is argued
that the notion of semantic transparency is crucial to an account of h
ow compounds are represented and processed in the mind. A sketch of a
model is proposed in which compound processing is described in terms o
f stimulus properties, lexical properties, and conceptual properties.
The model represents the notion of semantic transparency in terms of a
four-way classification of the semantic relationship between a compou
nd's constituents and the corresponding independent morphemes. It also
distinguishes between semantically componential and noncomponential c
ompounds. It is proposed that the model offers a framework within whic
h experimental psycholinguistic findings can be understood and within
which aphasic deficits associated with compound processing can be char
acterized. As an example of this, the paper presents a reanalysis of a
n aphasic patient who exhibits the tendency to interpret semantically
opaque compounds as though they were transparent and to interpret opaq
ue compounds in terms of a blend of constituent and whole-word meaning
. It is argued that the underlying deficit in this patient is the fail
ure for inhibition to result from the competition among stimuli at the
conceptual level of representation. (C) 1998 Academic Press.