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15th International Morphology Meeting
Vienna, 9-12 February, 2012
COMPOUNDS vs. PHRASES
The cognitive status of morphological
products
Katja Böer, Sven Kotowski & Holden Härtl
Universität Kassel
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THE MORPHOLOGY-SYNTAX INTERFACE
COMPOUND 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
4
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
black board
free mason
greenhouse
blackboard
Freemason
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Why does a language need compounds?
Yet, such contrasts are far from universal:
• Many compounds are not established names
terror dad
Nacktprotest [lit. ‘naked_protest’]
• Many phrases are established name
red 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.
a'.
b.
b’.
Kate drives an Audii, whichi recently has had engine
failure.
*Kate is an Audii driver, whichi recently has had
engine failure.
a drunk driver and a melancholic one
*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.
b.
??A
bottle of beer is green in Germany.
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.
b.
Dies ist ein sogenannter Tiefkamm.
[‘this is a so-called deep_comb’]
?? 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 priori
assumption 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
LEARNING PHASE:
Subjects were asked to memorize unknown picture
labels
eine Kurzsäge
ein breiter Kamm
Compound
Phrase
Subjects were asked to decide whether the presented
picture labels were correct or false
eine Flachsäge

eine Kurzsäge

ein breiter Kamm
ein tiefer Kamm

RESPONSE VARIABLE: Reaction time needed to decide
The procedure was repeated three times for each subject on days 1, 4, and 8


RECALL PHASE:
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Results: main effects
RT
1100
1050
•
Learned items were decided faster (p < .001)
RT
•
Subjects decided faster over time (p < .001)
RT
•
Phrases were decided faster (p < .01)
RT
1000
950
900
U
L
RT
1500
1000
500
0
D1
D2
D3
RT
1060
1040
1020
1000
980
C
P
15
ITEM TYPE X DAY
interaction (not significant)
Compounds
RT
Phrases
1110
1060
1010
960
910
860
Session 1
Session 2
Session 3
• Neither item type is memorized better over time (p < .26)
16
LEARNED X ITEM TYPE
interaction (p < .09)
•
Subjects took longer to decide unlearned compounds than unlearned phrases
(p < .001)
•
This discrepancy disappeared for learned compounds (p < .67)
 We find a stronger memorization effect for novel compounds
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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. phrase
EXP-STIM and STIM-EXP verbs
Sentence completion task:
(1)
a. Die flache Säge begeistert Christoph, weil
b. Die Flachsäge begeistert Christoph, weil
[sie/er]
[sie/er]
a. The flat saw enthuses Christoph, because
b. The flat_saw enthuses Christoph, because
[it/he]
[it/ he]
HYP: Novel compounds produce an even stronger bias towards
the STIMULUS explication.
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Results
180
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
COMPOUND
PHRASE
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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Intermediate conclusion
• 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)?
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Experiment 3: Self-paced-reading
Der A+N
mag
Maria weil
• A+N:
 compound
 compound
 phrase
 phrase
PRONOUN…
(marked)
(unmarked)
(marked)
(unmarked)
A prior questionnaire study verified that native speakers of
German could not assign meanings to the unmarked A+Nconstructions.
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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
rt ms
1200
1100
1000
unmarked
marked
900
800
700
Compound
Phrase
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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 differences
between 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. Inhoff
et 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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