Regular morphologically complex neologisms leave detectable traces in the mental lexicon

de Vaan, Laura; Schreuder, Robert; Baayen, R. H.

doi:10.1075/ml.2.1.02vaa

Article published In: The Mental Lexicon
Vol. 2:1 (2007) ► pp.1–23

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Regular morphologically complex neologisms leave detectable traces in the mental lexicon

Laura de Vaan | Radboud University Nijmegen

Robert Schreuder

R. H. Baayen

Published online: 11 May 2007

https://doi.org/10.1075/ml.2.1.02vaa

This study investigates whether regular morphological complex neologisms leave detectable traces in the mental lexicon. Experiment 1 (subjective frequency estimation) was a validation study for our materials. It revealed that semantic ambiguity led to a greater reduction of the ratings for neologisms compared to existing words. Experiment 2 (visual lexical decision) and Experiment 3 (self-paced reading in connected discourse) made use of long-distance priming. In both experiments, the prime (base or neologism) was followed after 39 intervening trials by the neologism. As revealed by mixed-effect analyses of covariance, the target neologisms elicited shorter processing latencies in the identity priming condition compared to the condition in which the base word had been read previously, indicating an incipient facilitatory frequency effect for the neologism.

Keywords: mixed-effects models, long-distance priming, morphology, neologisms, memory

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