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Article published In: Language and Linguistics
Vol. 27:1 (2026) ► pp.53–72

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Semantic activation of phonetic radicals in Chinese ideophonetic compound processing

ORCiD logo with link | Sichuan International Studies University | International Joint Institute of Brain Computer Language Interface
ORCiD logo with link | Sichuan International Studies University
ORCiD logo with link | Sichuan International Studies University | International Joint Institute of Brain Computer Language Interface
ORCiD logo with link | Sichuan International Studies University | Chongqing Normal University
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Published online: 13 October 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/lali.00253.jia
Abstract
The phonetic radicals embedded in Chinese ideophonetic compounds serve as indicators of the ideophonetic compounds’ pronunciations. The mainstream research, therefore, has focused on the phonological activation of the phonetic radicals and their contribution to the host ideophonetic compounds’ phonological processing. The present study, however, by employing a primed part-of-speech judgment task and manipulating the phonetic regularity variable, examined phonetic radicals’ semantic, instead of phonological, activation as well as the role of phonetic regularity in the processing of the host ideophonetic compounds. These results endorsed the presence of the semantic activation of phonetic radicals, refuting the influence of phonetic regularity on their activation. Conversely, they affirm that phonetic regularity could modulate the semantic activation of the entire ideophonetic compound.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Introduction to Chinese ideophonetic compounds and phonetic radicals
    • 1.2Uncertainty concerning the semantic activation of phonetic radicals
    • 1.3The present study
  • 2.Method
    • 2.1Participants
    • 2.2Materials and design
    • 2.3Procedure
  • 3.Results
  • 4.Discussion
  • 5.Conclusion
  • List of abbreviations
  • References
References (39)
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