The representation of "false cognates" in the bilingual lexicon

The results of repetition priming studies with homographs such as BANK sugg est that semantic constraints restrict priming to the specific meaning invo ked during the study phase. Cross-language priming studies with "false cogn ates" (words with similar form but unrelated meanings) suggest that form si milarity may be sufficient to support repetition priming, and they do not t herefore support this claim. The relevant studies have used language cues ( e.g., seeing the word ESTATE in the context of other Italian words) as dist inct from semantic cues (e.g., INVERNO-ESTATE) to Constrain meaning, howeve r, so that interpretation is correspondingly uncertain. The experiment desc ribed in this paper was designed to answer this question: Does sequential e xposure to the English word pair MANOR-ESTATE during the study phase facili tate lexical decision to the second of these words during sequential exposu re to the Italian word pair INVERNO-ESTATE (i.e., winter-summer) during the test phase of the experiment? In the experiment reported below, interpreta tion of false cognates was constrained by meaning rather than language, and cross-language repetition priming was eliminated for false cognates. The r esults suggest that lexical representation in bilinguals is organized along morphological lines rather than by language.