COMPOUNDS vs. PHRASESThe cognitive status of morphological

products

Katja Böer, Sven Kotowski & Holden HärtlUniversität Kassel

15th International Morphology MeetingVienna, 9-12 February, 2012

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THE MORPHOLOGY-SYNTAX INTERFACECOMPOUND or PHRASE?

• Are morphology and syntax two distinct modules in the human language faculty?

• Classical testbed: Constructions located at the interface of the two modules

Compound Phrase

blackbird black bird

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Contents

1 Semantic and grammatical differences between compounds and phrases

2 Experimental inquiry into the cognitive status of compounds: 3 studies

3 Conclusion

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Why does a language need compounds?

• Compounds are often said to have a name-giving function, to be representative of a category or to refer to a lexicalized concept

• Phrases on the other hand are often argued to have a primarily descriptive function

green house greenhouseblack board blackboardfree mason Freemason

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Why does a language need compounds?

Yet, such contrasts are far from universal:

• Many compounds are not established namesterror dad Nacktprotest [lit. ‘naked_protest’]

• Many phrases are established namered cabbage grüner Tee [‘green tea’]

• Are compounds nevertheless possibly prime suggestions for lexicalization, cf. Lipka (1977); Motsch (2004)?

Wutbürger [lit. ‘anger_citizen’]

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Grammatical differences

• Compounds are not accessible to syntactic operations, i.e., they display lexical integrity:

a. Kate drives an Audii, whichi recently has had engine failure.

a'. *Kate is an Audii driver, whichi recently has had engine failure.

b. a drunk driver and a melancholic oneb’. *a truck driver and an Audi one

cf. Booij (2009); Giegerich (2006)

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Semantic differences

• Compounds seem to be more restrictive in terms of interpretability:

a. Max is a sweet tálker. PHRASE Max is sweet as well as a talker. (intersective reading) Max is someone who talks sweetly (i.e., in order to

achieve a certain goal). (non-intersective)

b. Max is a swéet talker. COMPOUND allows for the non-intersective reading only: Max is

someone who talks sweetly.

cf. Bücking (2009); Schlücker & Hünning (2009); Schäfer (2010); Giegerich (2009)

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Semantic differences

• Compounds often designate kinds, while phrases do not seem to trigger a kind reading:

a. ??A bottle of beer is green in Germany.

b. A beer bottle is green in Germany.

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Semantic differences

• Unlike phrases, novel compounds are often marked and therefore compatible with sogenannte-contexts:

a. Dies ist ein sogenannter Tiefkamm.[‘this is a so-called deep_comb’]

b. ?? Dies ist ein sogenannter tiefer Kamm.[‘this is a so-called deep comb’]

cf. Bücking (2009); Carlson (1977); Krifka et al. (1995); Schlücker & Hünning (2009)

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Why does a language need compounds?

• A number of differences between compounds and phrases can be attested – grammatical as well as semantic

However,

• Underlying problem of the compound-phrase distinction:

Investigations into the distinction rely on the a prioriassumption that this very distinction exists

Thus, arguments are assailable on grounds of an inherent circularity (cf. Haspelmath 2011)

cf. Jacobs (2010)

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Investigations into cognitive differences

• Are these differences also mirrored in the respective cognitive treatment of the two constructions?

Morphology as an economic way of producing and memorizing complex linguistic structures, see Härtl (2011); Wunderlich (2008)

Williams syndrome: selective impairment for lexical computation/access with grammatical computation left intact, see Clahsen & Almazan (2000)

Aphasic data: selective impairment for syntactic phrases like strange fever with compound retrieval left intact, see Mondini et al. (2002)

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Investigations into cognitive differences

• Experiment 1:Are novel compounds memorized differently than corresponding phrases?

• Experiments 2 / 3:Do compounds behave differently from phrases as regards discourse salience?

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Experiment 1: Memorization study

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LEARNING PHASE: Subjects were asked to memorize unknown picture labels

eine Flachsäge

eine Kurzsäge ein breiter Kamm

ein tiefer Kamm

eine Kurzsäge

Compound

ein breiter Kamm

Phrase

RECALL PHASE: Subjects were asked to decide whether the presented picture labels were correct or false

RESPONSE VARIABLE: Reaction time needed to decide The procedure was repeated three times for each subject on days 1, 4, and 8

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Results: main effects

• Learned items were decided faster (p < .001)

• Phrases were decided faster (p < .01)

• Subjects decided faster over time (p < .001)

900

950

1000

1050

1100

U L

RT

RT

0

500

1000

1500

D1 D2 D3

RT

RT

980

1000

1020

1040

1060

C P

RT

RT

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ITEM TYPE X DAY interaction (not significant)

• Neither item type is memorized better over time (p < .26)

860

910

960

1010

1060

1110

Session 1 Session 2 Session 3

CompoundsPhrasesRT

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LEARNED X ITEM TYPE interaction (p < .09)

We find a stronger memorization effect for novel compounds

• Subjects took longer to decide unlearned compounds than unlearned phrases(p < .001)

• This discrepancy disappeared for learned compounds (p < .67)

Experiment 2: Questionnaire Study

• Do novel compounds behave differently in terms of discourse salience than phrases?

Testbed: Sentences which contain verbs of implicit causality

e.g. like, love and hate

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Verbs of implicit causality

• Verbs of implicit causality create a strong bias for pronouns to be resolved as a stimulus (cf. Härtl 2001, Brown & Fish, 1983)

(1) EXPERIENCER-STIMULUS verbs (E-S verbs)

Frieda(EXP) likes Peter(STIM) because he / ?she is friendly.

(2) STIMULUS-EXPERIENCER verbs (S-E verbs)

Linda (STIM), delights Hans (EXP) because she / ?he is very friendly.

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Questionnaire Study (pilot)

FACTORS: STIM as compound vs. phraseEXP-STIM and STIM-EXP verbs

Sentence completion task:(1) a. Die flache Säge begeistert Christoph, weil [sie/er]

b. Die Flachsäge begeistert Christoph, weil [sie/er]

a. The flat saw enthuses Christoph, because [it/he]b. The flat_saw enthuses Christoph, because [it/ he]

HYP: Novel compounds produce an even stronger bias towards the STIMULUS explication.

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Results

020406080

100120140160180

COMPOUNDPHRASE

EXP STIM

Total 177 314

Compound 80 168

Phrase 97 146

STIM vs. EXP (p < .0001)COMPOUND vs. PHRASE ( p < .09)

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• Experiments 1 and 2 show that novel compounds behave differently from phrases in that

they show a stronger memorization effect than the corresponding phrases

they noticeably raise discourse salience in comparison to phrases

However:Are these in fact structural effects or are they rather down to the novelty of the compounds (i.e., their semantic intransparency in comparison to phrases)?

Intermediate conclusion

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Experiment 3: Self-paced-reading

Der A+N mag Maria weil PRONOUN…

• A+N: compound (marked) compound (unmarked) phrase (marked) phrase (unmarked)

A prior questionnaire study verified that native speakers of German could not assign meanings to the unmarked A+N-constructions.

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Design

The deep_teacher pities Kim, because he has a good heart. Does the deep_teacher have a good heart?

• Sentences were self-paced-read word by word• Reaction times were measured for each word• After reading the sentences a comprehension question was asked• Due to German orthography there was a clear-cut distinction

between compounds (one word) and phrases (two) throughout• The last slide contained 1-3 words

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Results

• For the main measuring point – the pronoun position – no significant reading time differences between any of the four conditions could be observed

This was the case for overall-analyses as well as for analyses comparing individual subject performance

• This lead us to conduct statistical post-hoc analyses for the A+N-position

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Results: A+N-position

• As expected, marked compounds and marked phrases were read slower than umarked compounds and unmarked phrases (p < .001)

• Marked compounds were read slower than marked phrases (p < .001)

• Reading times for unmarked compounds and unmarked phrases were equal (p < .99)

• Marked phrases took longer than unmarked ones (p < .05)

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Results: A+N-position II

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700

800

900

1000

1100

1200

Compound Phrase

unmarkedmarked

rt ms

Conclusion

• We conducted three experiments to investigate the cognitive status of A+N-phrases as well as A+N-compounds

• Results imply processing and reading differencesbetween the two constructions

• Novel compounds show a more pronounced memorization effect as opposed to phrases and enhance discourse salience

• Furthermore, novel compounds are read the slowest among our four different test categories

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Discussion

• The cause for these differences is unclear:

first, it may be down to transparency effects second, structural differences may be at the bottom of

these discrepancies third, general reading differences between complex and

simplex words may cause the observed effects (cf. Inhoffet al., 1996)

• One aim of future research is to disentangle structural and semantic differences of phrases and novel compounds

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Thank You!

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