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Article In: Written Language & Literacy
Vol. 28:2 (2025) ► pp.297–327

Catalan speakers’/writers’ awareness of adjective compositionality

 | Universitat de Lleida
 | Universitat de Barcelona
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
The term compositionality refers to the extent to which the meaning of an expression can be derived from its constituent parts plus the way they are combined. This study investigates bilingual Catalan-Spanish speakers’/writers’ judgments of adjective compositionality and which word properties best explained informants’ decomposability judgments. Two complementary phases were conducted using 729 written adjectives drawn from the GRERLI-CAT1 corpus. In Phase 1, university students rated adjective decomposability on a four-point Likert scale. Hierarchical cluster analysis yielded a 13-point compositionality scale. In Phase 2, multiple regression analyses examined predictors of decomposability judgments. Adjective length emerged as the strongest predictor, while suffix family size and stem complexity contributed modestly. These findings support dual-route models of lexical access, suggesting that speakers alternate between holistic and decomposed processing depending on word properties. Overall, the results provide empirical support for a continuum-based model of morphological awareness, bridging morpheme-based and word-based approaches.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Morphological theories
    • 1.2Psycholinguistic theories
    • 1.3Literacy
    • 1.4Catalan adjectives
    • 1.5Goals of the study
  • 2.Method
    • 2.1Phase 1: User-based compositionality scale
      • 2.1.1Informants
      • 2.1.2Materials
      • 2.1.3Task and procedure
      • 2.1.4Analysis strategy
      • 2.1.5Compositionality scale
    • 2.2Phase 2: Researcher-based coding of adjective features
      • 2.2.1Productivity properties
      • 2.2.2Quantitative morphological features
      • 2.2.3Morphological complexity
      • 2.2.4Analysis strategy
    • 2.3Predictions
      • 2.3.1Phase 1: User-based compositionality scale
      • 2.3.2Phase 2: Researcher-based coding of adjective features
  • 3.Results
    • 3.1Phase 1: User-based compositionality scale
    • 3.2Phase 2: Researcher-based coding of adjective features
  • 4.Discussion
  • 5.Conclusions, limitations, and future directions
  • Notes
  • Author queries
  • References
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