Morphemic ambiguity resolution in Chinese: activation of the subordinate meaning with a prior dominant-biased context

In the present study, we examined how morphemic ambiguity is resolved using the visual-world paradigm. Participants were presented with Chinese bimorphemic words containing an ambiguous morpheme (analogous to the suffix -er in teacher and taller) and performed a visual search task. Their eye-movement patterns during target detection showed that (1) without a prior context, the dominant meaning of an ambiguous morpheme was more available than the subordinate one; (2) with a dominant-biased prior context, the subordinate meaning was still activated; and (3) a subordinate-biased prior context could inhibit the dominant interpretation. Therefore, both the frequency of the intended meaning and the prior contextual biases play a role in morphemic ambiguity resolution. The results are discussed with reference to models of ambiguity resolution and recent proposals of the graded nature of morphological effects.