Compound headedness in the mental lexicon: an event-related potential study

Area of Science:

• Psycholinguistics
• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Computational Linguistics

Background:

• Compound words in Romance languages exhibit variable head positions (initial or final).
• Previous research suggests syntactic structure influences word processing.
• The specific impact of head position on Italian compound processing remains underexplored.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if Italian compound word processing differs based on head position (initial, final, exocentric).
• To examine the role of perceived syntactic order in compound word processing.
• To analyze behavioral and electrophysiological (event-related potential) responses.

Main Methods:

• Lexical decision task using visually presented Italian compound words (head-initial, head-final, exocentric).
• Stimuli presented as whole words or separated constituents.
• Measurement of behavioral responses (reaction time, accuracy) and event-related potentials (ERPs).

Main Results:

• Behavioral data revealed a higher 'split cost' for head-final and exocentric compounds versus head-initial compounds.
• Event-related potential (ERP) data showed enhanced left anterior negativity (LAN) for head-final and exocentric compounds, irrespective of presentation mode.
• These findings suggest processing differences are linked to head position and syntactic analogy.

Conclusions:

• The analogy with syntactic order influences the internal structure and processing of Italian compound words.
• Head position is a critical factor affecting cognitive processing of compounds.
• Further research should explore other constituent properties impacting compound processing.