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The hyphen as a segmentation cue in triconstituent compound processing: it's getting better all the time
Raymond Bertram1, Victor Kuperman, R Harald Baayen
1Department of Psychology, University of Turku, Turku, Finland. rayber@utu.fi
Scandinavian Journal of Psychology
|September 30, 2011
Summary
Hyphenating Dutch and Finnish compounds at major boundaries can improve processing speed, even if illegal. This suggests hyphens act as effective segmentation cues, overcoming spelling rules with practice.
Area of Science:
- Psycholinguistics
- Computational Linguistics
- Cognitive Science
Background:
- Compound words in Dutch and Finnish typically follow strict spelling rules that disallow hyphenation.
- Previous research has not fully explored the processing implications of violating these rules.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the effect of hyphenation at different constituent boundaries on the processing of Dutch and Finnish compounds.
- To determine if illegal hyphenation can enhance compound word recognition.
Main Methods:
- Two eye-movement experiments were conducted using triconstituent Dutch and Finnish compounds.
- Participants processed compounds with hyphens inserted at major and minor constituent boundaries, as well as legally concatenated compounds.
Main Results:
- Hyphenation at major constituent boundaries initially slowed processing but became faster with practice, eventually matching or exceeding concatenated forms.
- Hyphenation at minor constituent boundaries consistently impaired processing speed.
- A learning effect was observed, with participants reading hyphenated compounds faster over time.
Conclusions:
- Hyphens can serve as efficient segmentation cues for compound words, even when their use is orthographically illegal.
- The cognitive system can overcome spelling violations if they aid in meaningful segmentation.
- The effectiveness of hyphenation as a cue depends on its placement at linguistically significant boundaries.
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