Compounds vary in terms of the extent to which the constituents’ meanings contribute to the meaning of the
compound, and there is an ongoing debate about whether the semantic representations of the constituents of opaque
compounds are available during compound processing. Three lexical decision experiments investigated whether
semantically priming the first constituent of a compound influenced the processing of that compound. Experiment 1
found semantic priming for fully transparent (TT) compounds but not for OT compounds. Experiment 2 found semantic
priming for TT compounds, but not for TO compounds. Experiment 3 found semantic priming for fully opaque (OO)
compounds, but not for TO compounds. Our results suggest that semantic transparency is a property of processing,
not of representation.
2025. The role of format familiarity and semantic transparency in Chinese reading: evidence from eye movements. BMC Psychology 13:1
Cheng, Gong & Hai Xu
2025. Chinese EFL learners’ conceptual combination of English noun–noun compounds: Effects of relational information and English proficiency. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition► pp. 1 ff.
Cheng, Gong, Hai Xu & Xian Zhang
2025. Examining the role of relational competition and English proficiency in noun-noun compound recognition among Chinese EFL learners. Lingua 326 ► pp. 104023 ff.
2025. Morpho-semantic priming of compound words in Chinese and English. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience 40:9 ► pp. 1220 ff.
Gagné, Christina L., Leah Auch & Thomas L. Spalding
2025. Consequences of morpheme access during the comprehension and production of three types of pseudo-compounds. Morphology 35:4 ► pp. 587 ff.
Guo, Zexi & Maimaiti Yilizhati
2025. Semantic activation and time course of ambiguous morphemes and whole words in Chinese compounds. Acta Psychologica 256 ► pp. 105047 ff.
Llompart, Miquel, Sara Fernández Santos & Ewa Dąbrowska
2025. Comprehension of object relatives in Spanish: the role of frequency and transparency in acquisition and adult grammar. Cognitive Linguistics 36:1 ► pp. 31 ff.
Wang, Tianqi & Xu Xu
2025. Composition as Nonlinear Combination in Semantic Space: A Computational Characterization of Compound Processing. Cognitive Science 49:2
Hwaszcz, Krzysztof & Hanna Kędzierska
2024. Cerebral asymmetries in the processing of opaque compounds in L1 Polish and L2 English. Linguistics Vanguard 9:1 ► pp. 125 ff.
Kačmár, Pavol & Lívia Körtvélyessy
2023. Big-Five model of personality and word formation: role of open-mindedness in semantic transparency and economy of expression. Language and Cognition 15:2 ► pp. 217 ff.
Yao, Yijia
2022. Exploring the Processing of Japanese Compound Verbs: Evidence from Unmasked Priming Lexical Decision Task. International Journal of Asian Language Processing 32:01
Körtvélyessy, Lívia, Pavol Štekauer & Pavol Kačmár
2021. On the role of creativity in the formation of new complex words. Linguistics 59:4 ► pp. 1017 ff.
Körtvélyessy, Lívia, Pavol Štekauer & Pavol Kačmár
2022. Creativity in Word Formation and Word Interpretation,
Momenian, Mohammad, Shuk K. Cham, Jafar Mohammad Amini, Narges Radman & Brendan Weekes
2021. Capturing the effects of semantic transparency in word recognition: a cross-linguistic study on Cantonese and Persian. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience 36:5 ► pp. 612 ff.
2021. Compound words are decomposed regardless of semantic transparency and grammatical class: An fMRI study in Persian. Lingua 259 ► pp. 103120 ff.
Zhao, Licui, Daichi Yasunaga & Haruyuki Kojima
2021. Similarities and Differences Between Native and Non-native Speakers’ Processing of Formulaic Sequences: A Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) Study. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 50:2 ► pp. 397 ff.
Auch, Leah, Christina L. Gagné & Thomas L. Spalding
2020. Conceptualizing semantic transparency: A systematic analysis of semantic transparency measures in English compound words. Methods in Psychology 3 ► pp. 100030 ff.
Gagné, Christina L., Thomas L. Spalding, Patricia Spicer, Dixie Wong, Beatriz Rubio & Karen Perez Cruz
2020. Is buttercup a kind of cup? Hyponymy and semantic transparency in compound words. Journal of Memory and Language 113 ► pp. 104110 ff.
Günther, Fritz & Marco Marelli
2020. Trying to make it work: Compositional effects in the processing of compound “nonwords”. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 73:7 ► pp. 1082 ff.
Günther, Fritz & Marco Marelli
2022. Patterns in CAOSS: Distributed representations predict variation in relational interpretations for familiar and novel compound words. Cognitive Psychology 134 ► pp. 101471 ff.
Günther, Fritz, Marco Alessandro Petilli & Marco Marelli
2020. Semantic transparency is not invisibility: A computational model of perceptually-grounded conceptual combination in word processing. Journal of Memory and Language 112 ► pp. 104104 ff.
Park, Juana, Faria Sana, Christina L. Gagné & Thomas L. Spalding
2019. The Effect of Types of Dictionary Presentation on the Retention of Metaphorical Collocations: Involvement Load Hypothesis vs. Cognitive Load Theory. International Journal of Lexicography 32:4 ► pp. 411 ff.
Djalal, Farah M, Wouter Voorspoels, Gert Storms & Tom Heyman
2019. Is jellyfish more of a fish in English than in Dutch? The effect of informative labels. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 72:4 ► pp. 792 ff.
Kim, Say Young, Melvin J. Yap & Winston D. Goh
2019. The role of semantic transparency in visual word recognition of compound words: A megastudy approach. Behavior Research Methods 51:6 ► pp. 2722 ff.
Schmidtke, Daniel, Christina L. Gagné, Victor Kuperman, Thomas L. Spalding & Benjamin V. Tucker
2018. Conceptual relations compete during auditory and visual compound word recognition. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience 33:7 ► pp. 923 ff.
Schmidtke, Daniel, Christina L. Gagné, Victor Kuperman & Thomas L. Spalding
2018. Language experience shapes relational knowledge of compound words. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 25:4 ► pp. 1468 ff.
Marelli, Marco, Christina L. Gagné & Thomas L. Spalding
2017. Compounding as Abstract Operation in Semantic Space: Investigating relational effects through a large-scale, data-driven computational model. Cognition 166 ► pp. 207 ff.
Bell, Melanie J. & Martin Schäfer
2016. Modelling semantic transparency. Morphology 26:2 ► pp. 157 ff.
Gagné, Christina L. & Thomas L. Spalding
2016. Written production of English compounds: effects of morphology and semantic transparency. Morphology 26:2 ► pp. 133 ff.
Gyllstad, Henrik & Brent Wolter
2016. Collocational Processing in Light of the Phraseological Continuum Model: Does Semantic Transparency Matter?. Language Learning 66:2 ► pp. 296 ff.
Körtvélyessy, Lívia, Pavol Štekauer & Július Zimmermann
2015. Word-Formation Strategies: Semantic Transparency vs. Formal Economy. In Semantics of Complex Words [Studies in Morphology, 3], ► pp. 85 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 27 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.
