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Article published In: Semantics and Psychology of Complex Words
Edited by Christina L. Gagné and Thomas L. Spalding
[The Mental Lexicon 15:1] 2020
► pp. 21–41

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On twittizens and city residents

Experimental study of semantic relations in English compounds and blends

 | IPU New Zealand
 | KiwiClass: Multicultural Support Services
Published online: 30 October 2020
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https://doi.org/10.1075/ml.00012.tar
Abstract
The present study analyses native speaker perceptions of the differences in the semantic structure of compounds and blends to specify whether the formal differences between compounds and blends are reflected on the semantic level. Viewpoints on blending vary, with some researchers considering it to be an instance of compounding (Kubozono, H. (1990). Phonological constraints on blending in English as a case for phonology-morphology interface. Yearbook of Morphology, 31, 1–20.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), while others identify blending as an interim word formation mechanism between compounding and shortening (López Rúa, P. (2004). The categorial continuum of English blends. English Studies, 851, 63–76. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). The semantic characteristics of English determinative blends and N+N subordinative compounds are compared by evaluating the differences in native speakers’ perceptions of the semantic relationships between constituents of the analysed structures. The results of two web-based experiments demonstrate that readers’ interpretations of both compounds and blends differ in terms of lexical indicators of semantic relations between the elements of these units. The experimental findings indicate that language users’ interpretation of both compounds and blends includes information on semantic relationships. The differences in the effect of the semantic relations on interpretations is likely to be connected to the degree of formal transparency of these units.
Article outline
  • Points of contact
    • Wordhood
    • Headedness and endocentricity
    • Semantic relations
    • Compositionality and transparency
  • Data for analysis
    • Experiment 1: Reader interpretations of compounds and blends presented in context
      • Participants
      • Materials
      • Procedure
      • Results
    • Experiment 2: Comparing definitions containing different information on the semantics of composite units
      • Participants
      • Materials
      • Procedure
      • Results
  • General discussion
  • Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
References (31)
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Cited by one other publication

Meng, Qingnan & Martin Hilpert
2024. Measuring the semantic headedness of English blends with token-based semantic vector space modeling: a corpus-based study. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities 39:4 ► pp. 1075 ff. DOI logo

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