The role of semantic transparency in lexical processing of head-first endocentric compounds in Persian

Articles in Press

Document Type : Research article

Authors
E. Esmaeelpour 1
F. Ghatreh 2
R. Golshaie 3
M. Zare 4
1 PhD Student, Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Literature, Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran
2 Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Literature, Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran
3 Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Literature, Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran
4 Assistant Professor, Department of Statistics, Faculty of Mathematics, Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
This research examines the lexical processing of head-first endocentric compounds in Persian based on semantic transparency. This study shows whether the processing is related to the morpheme-based, whole-word, or dual-root models. Moreover, this research concludes whether the processing is associated with sublexical or supralexical models. Two separate masked priming tasks are conducted. In the first experiment, the compound word is the primed word and the modifier is the target. In the second experiment, the prime is the compound word and the target is the head. Three conditions are considered: transparent, opaque, and orthographic-overlap. In order to analyze the result, mixed models are used. The results show significant priming effects for transparent and opaque conditions. While no priming effect is shown for the orthographic-overlap condition. It can be concluded that the lexical processing of head-first endocentric compounds is independent of semantic transparency. The processing is morpheme-based and it is on the basis of the sublexical model. Furthermore, the semantic processing of these words is supralexical. Moreover, the lack of priming effect for the orthographic conditions is seemingly associated with orthographic complexity in the Persian writing system.

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Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 13 July 2025