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While the theoretical models of morphological processing in Roman alphabets indicate prelexical activation, a model established in Korean suggests postlexical activation. To extend the model of Korean morphological processing, this study examined within-scriptal (Hangul-Hangul prime-target pairs) and cross-scriptal (Hanja-Hangul prime-target pairs) priming effects on the recognition of Sino-Korean compound words in Hangul as a function of adult readers’ Hanja proficiency using priming lexical decision tasks. Experiment 1 (n = 54) examined the constituent morphemic effects of Hangul and Hanja primes, while Experiment 2 (n = 67) investigated morphemic decomposition in Hangul and Hanja primes. Participants with skilled Hanja proficiency showed robust constituent morphemic effects with both Hangul and Hanja primes in isolation, while less-skilled participants did not show the effects with Hangul and Hanja primes (Experiment 1). The skilled group showed efficient morphological decomposition in both within- and cross-script conditions. However, the less-skilled group did not show morphological effects in the cross-script condition but the same effect in the within-script condition (Experiment 2). The skilled group showed ortho-phonological inhibitory effects on Hangul recognition resulting from competitions among activated neighbors, but the less-skilled counterpart did not show the effect. Based on the findings of this study, two differing pathway models of morphological processing in Hangul are proposed for readers with different Hanja proficiency. Morphological processing in Sino-Korean compound words seems to be prelexical for skilled readers, whereas it is postlexical for less-skilled readers.

Previous studies on L2 (i.e., second language) Chinese compound processing have focused on the relative efficiency of two routes: holistic processing versus combinatorial processing. However, it is still unclear whether Chinese compounds are processed with multilevel representations among L2 learners due to the hierarchical structure of the characters. Therefore, taking a multivariate approach, the present study evaluated the relative influence and importance of different grain sizes of lexical information in an L2 Chinese two-character compound decision task. Results of supervised component generalized linear regression models with random forests analysis revealed that the orthographic, phonological and semantic information all contributed to L2 compound processing, but the L2 learners used more orthographic processing strategies and fewer phonological processing strategies compared to the native speakers. Specifically, the orthographic information was activated at the whole-word, the character and the radical levels in orthographic processing, and the phonological information at the whole-word, the syllable, and the phoneme levels all exerted contributions in phonological processing. Furthermore, the semantic information of the whole words and the constituents was accessed in semantic processing. These findings together suggest that the L2 learners are able to use cues at all levels simultaneously to process Chinese compound words, supporting a multi-route model with a hierarchical morphological structure in such processing.

This study examined how Chinese native speakers (NSs) and second language (L2) learners process compound words. The findings showed that they used the hybrid model of coexistence for whole word and morphemes; and were influenced by word frequency, semantic transparency, and word structure. The results revealed that two groups of participants used hybrid representation when identifying high-frequency words and whole-word representation when identifying low-frequency words. Besides, semantic transparency might impact word structure awareness, and subject-predicate words were the most difficult to process. The research also showed that L2 learners’ word frequency effect was more robust than NSs’; morpheme location information might affect NSs, but L2 learners could not process it. There was variation in NSs’ speed in recognizing transparent and obscure words, but there was no difference among L2 learners. Besides, L2 learners’ word recognition speed could not reach the levels of NSs. Plain Language Summary Since the mental lexicon was put forward, researchers have begun to study the processing and representation of words. As an important part of vocabulary, the processing mechanism of compound words has also received much attention. There have been many studies on how native speakers process compound words so far, but researches on L2 learners are still in its infancy, and most of these studies have been done on English L2 learners, with little research on other languages, for example, Chinese as a second language. Compound words account for about 65% of the vocabulary in Mandarin Chinese. Therefore, research on the processing of Chinese compound words is of great significance. Two lexical judgment experiments were designed for the present study respectively with word frequency, semantic transparency, and lexical structure as independent variables to solve the disputes in the processing of compound words among native Chinese speakers and L2 learners adopting the repetitive priming paradigm based on the reaction time task. This work is the first to explore the interaction effects of semantic transparency and lexical structure on compound word processing. This study may be of particular interest to the general readers of your journal as it gives insight into the compound word processing mechanism of non-English second languages and enriches the theoretical knowledge of L2 word processing from a cross-language perspective. The findings show that they employ the hybrid model of coexistence for whole words and morphemes, and are affected by word frequency, semantic transparency, and word structure. We found that both Chinese native speakers (NS) and L2 learners use hybrid representation when identifying high-frequency words and whole-word representation when identifying low-frequency words; word structure awareness is affected by semantic transparency, and subject-predicate words are the most difficult to process. However, we also found that L2 learners’ word frequency effect is stronger than NSs’; morpheme location information may have an effect on NSs, but L2 learners cannot process it; There is variation in NSs’ speed in recognizing transparent and obscure words, but there is no difference among L2 learners. In addition, L2 learners’ word recognition speed and aptitude cannot reach the levels of NSs. Thus, Chinese L2 learners differ from English L2 learners in their lexical representations, as well as in the effects of semantic transparency, which further enriches the theory of L2 lexical processing.

In previous word reading studies, lexicality has been used as a variable to examine the impacts of word form and meaning information on the many stages of word recognition process. Yet the neural dynamics associated with lexicality effect of various information processing for Chinese visual word recognition has not been well elucidated. In this study, Chinese native speakers were instructed to read Chinese disyllabic compound words, morphological legal (pseudo-words) and illegal non-words with their brain potentials recorded. Event-related potentials (ERP) results showed that N200 was related to Chinese orthographic processing, where three lexical conditions elicited comparable patterns. A semantic discrimination was found for N400 between pseudo-words/non-words and real words, which is in favor of the lexical view of the N400 effect. Further, a later ERP component P600 exhibited the difference between the non-words and pseudo-words, reflecting a re-analysis of word meaning or grammatical operation on Chinese morphological legality. Therefore, we argue that Chinese morphological information might have an independent representation (the P600 effect) in mental lexicon.

English Complex Words is a lively, essential companion for multilingual explorations of word-formation processes, both in English and across 40 other languages. It offers today's broadest available coverage of English prefixation, suffixation and compounding.

In reading, rapid and reliable word recognition relies on high-quality representations at both the lexical and sublexical levels, with stable and flexible connections between form, sound, and meaning. Earlier studies suggested that meaning knowledge affects the formation and quality of orthographic representation in language learning, but the impact of morphemic meaning frequency on learners’ word recognition was not explored. This research examined second language (L2) Chinese readers’ recognition of compound words containing ambiguous morphemes. Using lexical decision tasks in a priming paradigm, we found that dominant primes (i.e., primes with morphemes encoding dominant meanings) facilitated L2 readers’ recognition of subordinate targets. We suggested that dominant meanings are associated with higher-quality orthographic representations in learners and dominant primes; thus, they facilitate readers’ recognition of orthographically and morphologically related subordinate targets. This study confirmed the role of sublexical constituents’ meaning variables in word recognition in language learning.

Chinese coordinative compound words are common and unique in inter-character semantic and orthographic relationships. This study explored the inter-character orthographic similarity effects on the recognition of transparent two-morpheme coordinative compound words. Seventy-two native Chinese readers participated in a lexical decision task. The findings demonstrated robust inhibitory inter-character orthographic similarity effects, intra-word character reversal effects, and inter-character semantic similarity effects. These results were compared to those of previous studies on coordinative compound word recognition and on the orthographic similarity phenomenon at both character and word levels. The findings were explained with the multi-level representational model of morphological processing of Chinese compound words (Zhou and Marslen-Wilson in Psychologia 43:47–66, 2000). The model was further extended by adding the activation of morpho-orthographic relationships and the mapping of morphemic orthographic information onto the semantic information of both morphemes and whole words.