Arthur W.S. Cater

The Influence of Interactional Semantic Patterns on the Interpretation of Noun-Noun Compounds

The CARIN theory (C. L. Gagné & E. J. Shoben, 1997) proposes that people use statistical knowledge about the relations with which modifiers are typically used to facilitate the interpretation of modifier-noun combinations. However, research on semantic patterns in compounding has suggested that regularities tend to be associated with pairings of semantic categories, rather than individual concepts (e.g., P. Maguire, E. J. Wisniewski, & G. Storms, in press; B. Warren, 1978). In the present study, the authors investigated whether people are sensitive to interactional semantic patterns in compounding. Experiment 1 demonstrated that the influence of a given modifier on ease of interpretation varies depending on the semantic category of the head. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the relation preference of the head noun influences ease of interpretation when the semantic category of the modifier is compatible with that preference. In light of these findings, the authors suggest that people are sensitive to how different semantic categories tend to be paired in combination and that this information is used to facilitate the interpretation process.

Is conceptual combination influenced by word order

We describe two experiments using French noun-noun combinations which parallel a study carried out by Gagne (2001) using English combinations. The order of the modifier and head noun are reversed in French, allowing us to investigate whether the influence of relation priming that Gagne found is due to the order of the modifier and head noun or whether it is due to their different functional roles. While our findings indicate that interpretation is influenced by previous exposure to combinations incorporating one of the same constituent nouns, the results show that primes with the same modifier have a greater influence when associated with a different relation to the target. This pattern of influence is similar to that found in English and suggests that the modifier is exclusively involved in relation selection, irrespective of its order in a combination.

The role of experience in the interpretation of noun---noun combinations

Gagné and Shoben’s (J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 23:71–87, 1997) Competition Among Relations In Nominals (CARIN) theory maintains that the interpretation of modifier-noun combinations is influenced primarily by how the modifying noun has been used in the past. As support for this theory, they found that modifiers typically associated with the instantiated relation are interpreted reliably faster than those whose modifiers are less frequently associated with the relation. The CARIN theory explains this phenomenon by proposing that people store statistical distributions regarding the frequency with which modifying nouns have combined with each relation in the past. However, we maintain that an association between relation frequency and response time does not imply a causal influence. In this study we explore whether the effects observed by Gagné and Shoben were caused by the influence of relation frequency per se. Two experiments were conducted in which experiential knowledge about the modifier was controlled. The first experiment involved combinations whose modifiers were relatively rare and the second involved the presentation of nouns without a modifier-head syntax. In both of these experiments, knowledge about historical modifier usage was irrelevant. Our results show that correlations between modifier preference and response time persist even in situations where a knowledge of the modifier’s history is not available. These findings provide converging evidence that the relationship between relation frequency and response time is not a causal one. Instead, an understanding of the relationship between modifier properties and usage, as appropriate to the given context, may be the dominant influence on interpretation in many circumstances. In light of this, we propose an alternative account of the factors influencing ease of interpretation.