processing english compounds in the first and second laguage ,the influence of the middle morpheme

Language Learning ISSN 0023-8333

Processing English Compounds in the First

and Second Language: The Influence

of the Middle Morpheme

Victoria A. Murphy

University of Oxford

Jennifer Hayes

University of Hertfordshire

Native English speakers tend to exclude regular plural inflection when producing Englishnoun-noun compounds (e.g., rat-eater not rats-eater) while allowing irregular pluralinflection within compounds (e.g., mice-eater) (Clahsen, 1995; Gordon, 1985; Hayes,Smith & Murphy, 2005; Lardiere, 1995; Murphy, 2000). Exposure to the input alone hasbeen considered insufficient to explain this dissociation between regular and irregularplurals in compounds because naturally occurring compounds in English rarely haveplurals of any type included within them (e.g., Gordon, 1985). However, the constrainton the production of plural inflection in English compounds could be derived fromthe patterns in which regular plural and possessive morphemes occur in the input. Toexplore this idea, native adult English speakers and adult Chinese learners of Englishwere asked to process a series of compounds containing different medial morphemes andphonemes. Comparisons were made across compounds with regular and irregular pluralsand possessive [-s]. Native speakers (NS) of English processed compounds with medialpossessive morphology faster than compounds with medial regular plural morphology.The second language learners did not show the same pattern as the NSs, which couldbe due to the fact that they had considerably less exposure to the relevant input patternsrelative to the NSs. Regular plurals may be excluded before a rightmost noun in Englishbecause the pattern “Noun–[-s] morpheme–Noun” is more frequently used for markingpossession in English. Irregular plurals do not end in the [-s] morpheme and therefore

The authors of this article are grateful to the participants for their time and energy, as well as to

Meyric Rawlings for technical assistance. We would also like to thank the reviewers of this article

and, particularly, Kira Gor, for putting this issue together and for her patient editorial skills, which

had a significant positive impact on the final version of this article.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Victoria A. Murphy, Depart-

ment of Education, University of Oxford, 15 Norham Gardens, Oxford OX2 6PY UK. Internet:

[email protected]

Language Learning 60:1, March 2010, pp. 194–220 194C© 2010 Language Learning Research Club, University of Michigan

Murphy and Hayes Influence of the Middle Morpheme

do not “compete” with the possessive marker and, consequently, may be optionallyincluded in compounds. It is possible, therefore, that the input English learners receivecould indeed be sufficient to constrain this aspect of English compound production.

Keywords compounding; inflectional morphology; possessive morphology

A compound is made up of two or more words concatenated to form anotherword (e.g., pan and cake → pancake). Compounds usually consist of a “head”word and a modifier. The head word in English compounds is usually therightmost word of the compound and tends to designate the particular entityidentified by the compound. The modifier word precedes the head and qualifiesthe sense denoted by the head. For example, in the compound pancake, thehead word is cake and the modifier word is pan. Compounds can also have ahead-complement relationship (e.g., taxi driver, dish washer) and these typesof compounds are referred to as synthetic compounds. When asked to producesynthetic compounds made up of two nouns in which the first nonhead nounis plural, English-speaking children (Gordon, 1985; Nicoladis, 2003; Oetting& Rice, 1993; van der Lely & Christian, 2000), native German-speaking chil-dren (Clahsen, Marcus, & Bartke, 1993), native English-speaking teenagers(van der Lely & Christian, 2000), and native English-speaking adults (Lardiere& Schwartz, 1997; Murphy, 2000) more often include irregular than regularplurals in compounds. Thus, in the literature, it has become generally acceptedthat regular plurals are omitted but irregular plurals “easily appear inside com-pounds” (Marcus, Brinkmann, Clahsen, Weise, & Pinker, 1995, p. 208).

Gordon (1985) was among the first studies to empirically demonstratethat native English speakers (in this case, children) exclude regular pluralsin producing compounds but include irregulars. What was particularly note-worthy concerning this finding was that neither regular nor irregular pluralinflection tends to appear within naturally occurring English compounds. TheEnglish-speaking children tested in Gordon’s study produced irregular pluralsin compounds even though these compounds are rare in natural child-directedspeech (i.e., children are likely to hear “toothbrush” not “teeth brush” and“mouse-trap” not “mice-trap”). Thus, Gordon (1985) argued that if compoundswith plurals (of either type) do not occur frequently enough in the input tosignal when and what type of plurals are licensed internal to compounds, thenan innate morphological constraint must mediate this aspect of compound pro-duction. In other words, he argued that the input alone is insufficient to explainthe observed dissociation between regular and irregular plural inflection in theproduction of English compounds.

195 Language Learning 60:1, March 2010, pp. 194–220


This suggestion is similar to Pinker’s (1999) explanation for the dissociationbetween regular and irregular plurals in compounds, namely that irregularplurals are represented and processed differently from regulars (Pinker, 1991,1999; Pinker & Prince, 1988). Pinker and Prince’s dual-mechanism modelproposed dissociated systems in which the processing of regular morphologyis mediated by classic symbolic rules of grammar (e.g., rat + [-s] = rats).Conversely, irregulars are stored as memorized pairs of words (mouse-mice) inthe mental lexicon. In terms of how the dual-mechanism model might impactupon compounding, Marcus et al. (1995) argued that as compounds are theproduct of joining together two stems from the mental lexicon to form oneword, irregular plurals may be used in compounds because they are stored,already inflected, as lexical items. However, regular forms are not includedin compounds because they are products of rule application that takes placeoutside the lexicon, “online,” and at a later stage than compounding in the wordformation process.

As cited earlier, many studies in the L1 literature have reported a disso-ciation between regular and irregular plurals in compound production whereparticipants exclude regular plural forms within compounds (rat-eater) whileincluding irregulars (mice-eater). Similarly, a number of studies have shown thesame pattern in the second language (L2) literature testing adults on compoundproduction tasks (e.g., Clahsen, 1995; Garcı́a Mayo, 2006; Lardiere, 1995;Murphy, 2000). This consistent demarcation between regular and irregular plu-rals in compound production across both first language (L1) and L2 studiesdoes certainly suggest that something about these two forms lends them to beprocessed differently in compound production. However, the dual-mechanismaccount of this difference has a number of problems associated with it withrespect to how well it accounts for the interaction between plural inflectionalmorphology and compound production in English (e.g., see Murphy, 2000,2004, for a discussion). One obvious problem is that there are in fact a fewpersistent examples of regular plurals appearing within compounds (despite thefact that such forms are meant to be prohibited by the dual-mechanism model).Haskell, MacDonald, and Seidenberg (2003) found in their corpus analysis thatin 6% of occasions in which regular plurals appeared, they were followed bya second noun. Although not a high proportion, these 6% illustrate that suchforms do appear, despite their prohibition laid down by the dual-mechanismmodel. Pinker (1999, p. 181) also listed 25 examples, such as singles bar andpublications catalogue, in which regular plurals occur inside compounds. Fur-thermore, regular plurals do occur internal to compounds in languages otherthan English, such as Dutch (Schreuder, Neijt, van der Weide, & Baayen, 1998)

Language Learning 60:1, March 2010, pp. 194–220 196


and Spanish (Lardiere, 1995). Languages do vary, however, with respect tocompound formation and whether plurals are licensed within them. Garcı́aMayo (2006) noted that Spanish compounds retain the canonical Verb-Object(VO) order in deverbal compounds (e.g., lavaplatos, where lava is the verb [towash] and platos is the object [dishes]). Basque, on the other hand, is more likeEnglish in that compounds in Basque are head-final and do not allow internalinflection (Garcı́a Mayo, 2006). Thus, there is variability across languages withrespect to both how compounds are formed and whether internal inflection islicensed. The dual-mechanism model bars any regular inflectional morphologyinternal to compounds. However, in English, and indeed in other languages,it is easy to find examples that violate this prohibition. The possessive [-s]morpheme, for example, is a relatively common “regular” inflectional mor-pheme that appears within compounds (e.g., Adam’s apple). An analysis ofchild-directed speech in the CHILDES database indicated that when either thephoneme /s/ or /z/ (which can also function as allomorphs of the regular pluralmorpheme) appears in a noun-noun sequence, it is almost always a possessive[-s] morpheme (Hayes, 2003). Therefore, the dual-mechanism model is an un-satisfactory explanation of the relationship between regular/irregular pluralsand compounding in English, both in the L1 and the L2.

One alternative explanation explored in this article is whether the inputdoes indeed consist of sufficient information to lead English learners to ex-clude regular plurals from compounding and optionally allowing irregulars.Murphy (2000) and Haskell et al. (2003) suggested that children may learn thatregular and irregular plurals are treated differently in compounds, not by justusing examples of naturally occurring compounds but also from more generalproperties of language that are frequently exemplified in the input to whichthey are exposed. Murphy (2000) suggested that one reason children mightomit regular plurals from English compounds could stem from the fact thatthe plural [-s] morpheme consistently is found at the end rather than in themiddle of words. Children will omit the regular plural in producing compoundsbecause including a plural [-s] within a compound would violate an overwhelm-ingly consistent pattern in the input—namely, that the plural [-s] should be inword-final position. Irregular plurals do not end in the [-s] morpheme and thusmay be included in the middle of compounds. Thus, even if there are few exam-ples of irregular plurals in compounds in the input, including irregular pluralswithin English compounds does not violate a consistent pattern in the input.Despite the fact there are a few examples of regular plurals within compounds(as noted earlier), these forms are still comparatively rare and, therefore, aprobabilistic account would lead to learning a pattern that tends not to prefer



plurals within compounds. Note, however, that a probabilistic account would“allow” the occasional example of a regular plural in compounds, despite thefact that the overwhelming pattern is that there are no plurals in compounds.The dual-mechanism model, claiming that no regular inflection should occurwithin compounds, struggles to adequately explain the exceptions.

Haskell et al. (2003) argued that two input-driven constraints linked tonoun usage lead to the dissociation between regular and irregular plurals incompounds. First, in English, items that precede a noun tend not to be markedfor plurality. This first constraint that Haskell et al. referred to as the seman-tic constraint works alongside their second phonetic constraint. The phoneticconstraint refers to the fact that although many different-sounding words mayprecede a noun, words ending in a phoneme that sounds like a plural (/s/ or/z/) rarely do. Thus, the influence of the semantic and the phonetic constraintsworking in tandem leads to very few plurals that end in /s/ or /z/ appearingbefore a noun. When the item is plural but does not end in /s/ or /z/, only the se-mantic (not the phonetic) constraint is invoked, and under these circumstances,some plurals that do not end in /s/ (/z/) (i.e., irregular plurals) may be producedbefore a second noun. Table 1 shows Haskell et al.’s prediction of how differentitems should be treated before a second noun if, as they argued, compoundingis governed by the co-influence of the semantic and the phonetic constraints onnouns.

According to Haskell et al.’s (2003) constraint satisfaction model, singularnouns being neither semantically nor phonetically plural1 may appear in com-pounds (e.g., rat catcher). Irregular plurals are semantically plural without be-ing phonetically plural and thus they may appear optionally within compounds(mice catcher). Bifurcate pluralia tanta, items such as “scissors,” “pants,” and

Table 1 Prediction of modifier acceptability by semantic and phonetic factors

Semantically PhoneticallyType of noun Example plural? plural? Acceptability

Singular Rat, mouse No No AcceptableIrregular plural Mice Yes No MarginalBifurcate pluralia tanta Scissors No Yes MarginalPhonetic /s/ or /z/ Grass No Yes MarginalVoicing change Knives Yes Yes Not acceptableRegular plural Rats Yes Yes Not acceptablePossessives Cat’s No Yes Marginal

Data from Haskell et al. (2003).



“binoculars,” which although being phonetically plural are considered semanti-cally singular (Bock, Eberhard, Cutting, & Schriefers, 2001), should also appearoptionally within compounds.2 Voicing change plurals are both semanticallyand phonetically similar to plurals and thus they should pattern with regularplurals and be omitted from compounds. Regular plurals are subject to boththe phonetic and the semantic constraint and this is why they do not appearbefore a second noun. Possessives are not semantically plural; however, they arephonetically similar to plural and therefore, should rate alongside the irregularsfor acceptability—in other words, be marginally acceptable. This prediction,of course, is problematic given that there are many examples of possessive [-s]morphemes internal to noun-noun compounds and thus their acceptability ismore than marginal.

Haskell et al. (2003) argued that the phonetic and semantic constraintsare learned from general properties of plurals and prenominal modifiers thatchildren experience in the input they receive. Children may not hear itemssuch as mice-chaser, but they hear many noun-noun compounds that do notinclude plurals, such as toy box or animal book. They also hear many pluralsin other contexts and quickly learn how plurals should be situated in generallanguage. Thus, they learn that in contrast to the way plurals are normallyused, plurals do not appear before other nouns. They also hear many phrasesin which prenominal modifiers (i.e., adjectives) that do not end in the /s/ or/z/ phoneme precede nouns (e.g., big box or red book). The idea then behindHaskell et al.’s constraint satisfaction model is that children use all of the rele-vant items they have heard (not just compounds themselves) to judge whethernew items they experience are grammatical. This input-driven account is inline with other work that has shown that even low-frequency items in the inputcan influence the kind of compounds children produce (Murphy & Nicoladis,2006).

It is important to highlight that underlying the argument in Haskellet al. (2003) is that it is not only compounds that contribute to English learn-ers’ knowledge of how inflectional morphology might interact with compoundforms. Rather, sequences of English language (whether they be compounds inthe strict sense or not) contribute to this knowledge. Furthermore, exposure toboth written and aural linguistic input would contribute to the development ofthis knowledge. The relevant sequences might consist of traditional compoundforms (e.g., Adam’s apple or blackboard), whereas at other times the informa-tion about where specific phonological and morphological features occur inthe input might also contribute. For example, the fact that the plural [-s] rarelyoccurs before a second noun (whether it be part of a compound or not) in child



language input (Hayes, 2003) could play an important role in leading Englishspeakers to exclude regular plurals from within compound sequences.3

Cunnings and Clahsen (2007) took issue with Haskell et al.’s (2003) ex-planation of why regular plurals are excluded from English compounds andargued that an important comparison to support Haskell et al.’s (2003) modelwould come from compounds with nonhead nouns that are semantically andmorphologically singular but yet nonetheless sound plural. Cunnings andClahsen argued that if Haskell et al.’s account is to be validated, speakersof English should “disprefer” fox chaser over wolf chaser given that fox ends ina phoneme that is phonologically similar to the regular plural marker in English.They reported evidence that shows that adult native speakers of English equallyprefer items such as fox chaser and wolf chaser despite fox “sounding” plural,thus disconfirming Haskell et al.’s prediction. Cunnings and Clahsen reportedon their online processing study, which, in their view, supports the notion thatparticipants exclude regular plurals from compounds due to a morphologicalconstraint.

These arguments about whether and to what extent the input can guidespeakers’ compound production can be extended to the input that L2 learnersof English receive as well. Input-based features (e.g., where plurals are situated,the kinds of compounds and noun phrases L2 learners would be exposed to,etc.) could also lead an L2 learner to selectively exclude regular plurals fromcompounds. Given that L2 learners, like native speakers of English, tend toexclude regular plurals from compounds, it is reasonable that L2 learnersalso come to learn this from the relevant properties in the input. These areimportant ideas to consider within the L2 perspective, particularly because, todate, the significant majority of research investigating L2 learners’ knowledgeof compounds has relied on production data only. This is problematic becauseif a learner has learned from the input that regulars should not be producedwithin English compounds (but irregulars are optionally allowed), then theywill always demonstrate that dissociation in compound production tasks and,therefore, production data itself will not be in helpful considering alternativetheoretical explanations for why regular plural inflection is disallowed withinEnglish compounds. Therefore, one of the main aims of this article was toexplore the extent to which these more input-based or probabilistic explanationsof how plural inflectional morphology and compounding interact might accountfor L2 learner behavior.

Given the problems associated with the dual-mechanism account (discussedearlier) and because Haskell et al.’s (2003) probabilistic model accounts formore of the data (i.e., their model allows for the few but rarely occurring



English compounds with regular plural inflection), Haskell et al.’s constraintsatisfaction explanation of English compounding seems a much more plausibleexplanation of why regular plurals are excluded from English compounds (forboth L1 and L2 compound production). A crucial element that needs furtherexploration, however, concerns possessive nouns. Possessive singular nounshave not been studied in relation to compounds either in the context of Haskellet al.’s (2003) study or Cunnings and Clahsen’s (2007) investigation. Singularpossessive nouns are clearly not plurals (they do not violate the semantic con-straint when appearing in front of a second noun). However, singular possessivenouns sound like plurals, violating Haskell et al.’s phonetic constraint. Theirphonetic constraint would predict, therefore, that, at best, possessive nouns incompounds would be marginally acceptable. As Cunnings and Clahsen (2007)pointed out, a good test of the Haskell et al. (2003) model would come fromitems that are semantically and morphologically singular, yet are phonologi-cally plural. The possessive noun fits this category. Language users frequentlyaccept singular possessive nouns preceding a second noun in a noun-noun com-pound. Frequency counts of a sample of the CHILDES corpora (McWhinney& Snow, 1985) show that possessive nouns are almost always followed by asecond noun. Because the possessive does frequently appear before a secondnoun, learners of English would be reluctant to include and/or accept regularplurals in compounds because the sequence “noun–[-s] morpheme–noun” isreserved for marking possession. Therefore, the differential processing of /s/(or /z/) as a plural marker compared to /s/ (or /z/) as a possessive marker couldbe significant in the explanation for why there are so few examples of regularplural morphemes internal to noun-noun compounds, whereas irregular pluralsare sometimes included on compound elicitation tasks. The research reportedhere explores the co-influence of both the possessive and plural morphologicalsystems as an explanation for why regular and irregular plural morphology isdissociated in English, for both native speakers and L2 learners. This research,therefore, is an extension of the Haskell et al. (2003) model into the L2 domainand includes possessive morphology.

It was useful also to investigate how words ending in the phoneme /s/ (or/z/) would be treated in the middle of a word (i.e., before another noun ina compound) given that these phonemes sound like allomorphs of the plural[-s] morpheme. The Haskell et al. (2003) corpus analysis found that itemsappearing before a second noun tended to differ from regular plurals in thatthey did not end in the /s/ (or /z/) phoneme. They did not, however, test howlanguage users treat nouns that end in the phoneme /s/ (or /z/), such as “kiss,”which are positioned before second nouns in English (e.g., kiss-stealer), items



that Cunnings and Clahsen (2007) argued would be a better test of Haskellet al.’s account and should be dispreferred relative to singular nouns not endingin /s/ (or /z/). When these items ending in the phoneme /s/ (or /z/) precede asecond noun, they violate the phonetic constraint because both /s/ and /z/ arephonemes that also sound like allomorphs of the plural [-s] morpheme. Thus,Haskell et al.’s model would predict that these items should be less preferablewithin compounds than singular nouns (which violate neither constraint), aspreferable as irregular nouns (which also violate one constraint), but preferredover regular plurals (which violate both constraints). Therefore, how nonheadnouns ending in the phoneme /s/ (or /z/) are treated in compounds was alsotested in this study.

To explore these ideas, native adult English speakers and adult MandarinChinese L2 learners of English were asked to process noun-noun compoundsas part of a visual online lexical decision task (LDT). The noun-noun se-quences used in this LDT consisted of either the regular plural [-s] morpheme,the possessive [-s] morpheme, or the /s/ or /z/ phoneme (which served nomorphological function). As the participants were being presented with thesesequences visually, the critical feature of these sequences was the presence (orabsence) of the orthographic “s,” which could be realized either as /s/ or /z/.This orthographic “s” either acted as a plural [-s] morpheme, a possessive [-s]morpheme, or just an “s” (realized phonetically as either /s/ or /z/). There iscurrently no research that has used an LDT task like this with L2 learners,and, as such, it is of interest to identify whether the same consistent disso-ciation between regulars and irregulars illustrated in L2 learners’ compoundproduction can be found in a processing task. In this study, the LDT task waspresented visually to all participants because it was felt that a visual presenta-tion of the material would preclude any potential ambiguity for the L2 learnersif the accent in which aural stimuli was presented was not familiar to the L2learners (which might have been possible given the significant majority of theirEnglish-learning experience was in China—see the Methodology section). Fur-thermore, for some of the comparisons made in this study, the critical featurethat distinguished between sets of stimuli is the presence (or absence) of a sin-gle orthographic “s” (realized phonetically as /s/ or /z/ and which may or maynot also function as an [-s] morpheme depending on the example). Therefore,to avoid the possibility that participants might not hear this critical feature, thetask was presented visually. Previous work has indicated quite clearly, how-ever, that modality effects are important in L2 research (e.g., Murphy, 1997)and future studies of this type would profit from making explicit comparisonsacross modality conditions. Including the L2 learners in this study also allows



for exploration of a prediction concerning exposure to the input. Haskell et al.’s(2003) account, and this investigation of it, requires the learners to have hadsufficient exposure to English input to have “learned” the relative patterns con-cerning which types of items are licensed before a noun in a noun-noun Englishcompound. Native speakers of English will have had years of authentic richinput. However, L2 learners, although having had sufficient input to lead themto exclude regular plurals in compounds in production tasks, may not have hadsufficient input to be able to manifest a preference for specific types of inflec-tional affixes within compounds. In other words, if, as Haskell et al. claimed,learners use all of the relevant information available to them in their compoundproduction (i.e., not just compounds themselves), then, unlike in previous com-pound production studies in which the L2 learners pattern with the nativespeakers, a conceivable finding could be that L2 learners do not distinguishbetween compounds with possessives, regular plurals, or indeed other types ofinflection.

Using a LDT in this research is useful, as in the majority of previous ex-periments, participants have been asked to either produce compounds (e.g.,Gordon, 1985; Murphy, 2000) or have been asked to make preference judge-ments either without context (Senghas, Kim, Pinker, & Collins, 1991) or withcontext (Haskell et al., 2003). The LDT task, by definition, requires participantsto reflect on an item and decide whether it is acceptable to them. Given thata focus of this study was to measure the relative difference in participants’responses to noun-noun sequences that differed with respect to the absence (orpresence) of the middle morpheme, it was felt that an LDT would be appropri-ate as a processing measure. Furthermore, in the LDT it is possible to measurehow participants respond to structures that they might in fact never produce.This will help identify much more precisely what kinds of forms they prefer.A further advantage of an LDT is that it is possible to collect reaction timesand thus obtain a measure of the relative degree to which some structures aremore easily processed. In this experiment, reaction times and error rates wererecorded for five different categories of words in the same mixed design. Thetypes of compounds tested were ones in which the first noun was either (a) aregular plural noun, (b) a possessive noun, (c) an irregular plural noun, (d) asingular noun that ended in phonetic /s/ or /z/,4 or (e) a singular noun that endsin a phoneme other than /s/ or /z/.

The inclusion of these various items tested Haskell et al.’s (2003) explana-tion of compounding with L2 learners and the additional hypothesis suggestedhere that the relative distribution of plural [-s] and possessive [-s] morphol-ogy could influence how learners of English process (and produce) English



compounds with inflectional morphology. This design enabled an investigationof the following research questions:

1. Will compounds containing possessive nouns be processed more quicklythan compounds containing plural nouns?

2. Will the same preferences as shown by native speakers (NSs) be manifestby nonnative speakers (NNSs) who have had considerably less exposure tothe input?

Furthermore, if, as Murphy (2000) suggested, plural [-s] is omitted fromthe middle of lexical items like compounds because it is associated with wordfinality, then:

3. Will compounds in which the first noun ends in /s/ (/z/), whether it is theplural form or not, be processed more slowly than compounds that do notinclude a first noun ending in /s/ (/z/)? Will this difference (if observed)be manifested by the NNSs who have had significantly less exposure toEnglish? Assuming that the role of exposure is a critical variable, then onemight predict that the L2 learners will not show this preference in the LDTtask.

Methodology

DesignThere were two groups of participants recruited for this experiment: nativespeakers (NSs) of English and nonnative speakers (NNSs) of English. Eachparticipant was exposed to compounds made up from five different categoriesof nonhead word (1) regular plural, (2) possessive, (3) irregular plural, (4)phonetic /s/ (/z/), and (5) phoneme other than /s/ (/z/). It should be noted thatas the task was presented visually; the participants were presented with anorthographic “s” in category 1, which functioned as a regular [-s] morpheme.In category 2 the orthographic “s” functioned as a possessive [-s] morpheme.In category 4 the orthographic “s” served no morphological function but wasphonetically realized as an /s/ (/z/) phoneme. A methodological variable called“order” was also included in this design to preclude the possibility that resultscould be due to the order in which the items appeared. Therefore, half of theparticipants saw the stimuli in one random order and half of the participantssaw it in a second random order. The dependent variables for the LDT werereaction time and accuracy (measured in terms of number of items correctlyidentified as words or nonwords).



ParticipantsTwenty-two undergraduate students in the Department of Psychology at theUniversity of Hertfordshire took part in the study in exchange for course credit.All were native English speakers and had been educated in the United Kingdomcontinuously between the ages of 5 and 18 years. The average age was 24 years,ranging from 20 to 28. Twenty-one participants were female and one was male.Whereas some of the NSs reported having had exposure to L2 instruction atschool (French or German), none of the NS participants reported being bilingualor having any real degree of L2 knowledge or fluency and none of these NSswere studying an L2 at the time of participating in the study.

Thirteen Mandarin Chinese learners of English, with a mean age of 23years, ranging from 21 to 25 (five males, eight females) were also recruited toparticipate in the study. These NNSs were studying English at a university inpreparation for entry into a UK university for academic study. Within the contextof their English language studies, they were tested on listening, reading, andwriting skills from the University’s Bridging Programme, English for Academicpurposes test. The range of scores from this test identified these students asadvanced-level learners of English. These participants had started learningEnglish in their early teens at school and had the significant majority of theirexposure to English through classroom-based foreign language instruction inChina, most of which was teacher-centered, using specifically designed Englishas a foreign language (EFL) materials. They had been living in the UnitedKingdom for a period of 4–6 months prior to being recruited into this study.Thus, although they were advanced learners of English, they had had both aquantitatively and qualitatively different type of English exposure than the NSs.None of these NNS participants reported having spent any considerable amountof time in an English-speaking country prior to their residency in the UnitedKingdom at the time of testing.5

Materials and StimuliStimuli included English compounds (which were shown visually on a com-puter screen) for which the first noun in each compound was taken from oneof five groups. These were (1) regular plural nouns, (2) possessive nouns,(3) irregular plural nouns, (4) singular nouns ending in phonetic /s/ (/z/), and(5) singular nouns ending in a phoneme other than /s/ (/z/). As noted earlier,the participants were presented with the orthographic “s” in categories 1, 2,and 4, but in each category, the orthographic “s” served different functions. Incategory 1 the orthographic “s” was a regular plural [-s] morpheme, in category2 the orthographic “s” was a possessive [-s] morpheme, and in category 4 the



orthographic “s” was a graphemic representation of the phoneme /s/ (/z/). Thefrequencies of these first nouns were calculated using the analysis in Francisand Kucera (1982). The mean frequency (and standard deviations) of each ofthe five sets of first nouns were as follows: Set 1 (regulars), M = 76.89, SD =75.15; Set 2 (possessives), M = 39.17, SD = 49.52; Set 3 (irregulars), M =215.25, SD = 260.91; Set 4 (singular nouns ending in /s/ [/z/]), M = 53.41,SD = 64.26; Set 5 (singular nouns not ending in /s/ [/z/], M = 140.76, SD =191.81. These means were submitted to a one-way ANOVA, which indicatedthere was a significant difference among these sets’ means, F(4, 89) = 3.92,p < .01. Tukey HSD post hoc tests revealed that the irregular plural nouns usedas the first nouns in the compounds had a higher mean overall frequency thanthose in the sets in which the first nouns were regular plurals, possessives, andsingular nouns ending in /s/ (/z/). All other sets were not different from eachother in overall mean frequency. The second noun in each compound was adeverbal noun (i.e., a noun formed from a verb; e.g., walker). The frequenciesof these second nouns were as follows: Set 1 (regulars), M = 7.42, SD =9.71; Set 2 (possessives), M = 17.13, SD = 20.80; Set 3 (irregulars), M =215.25, SD = 260.91; Set 4 (singular nouns ending in /s/ [/z/]), M = 21.52,SD = 24.29; Set 5 (singular nouns not ending in /s/ [/z/]), M = 16.61, SD =22.46. These means were submitted to a one-way ANOVA, which revealed asignificant difference between the group frequency means of the second nounsin each of the compounds, F(4, 67) = 9.53, p < .01. Tukey’s HSD post hoc testsagain revealed that the frequencies of the second nouns in the irregular set weresignificantly higher relative to the other four sets of second nouns. All other setsof second nouns were not different from each other in overall mean frequency.The higher mean frequency from the irregular noun set is not problematic forthe design of the study because the critical comparisons are between the regularand possessives and between the nouns ending in /s/ (/z/) against those that donot end in /s/ (/z/). These sets are matched on overall frequency. Table 2 showsexamples of each type of compound tested (a full list of all stimuli is shown inthe Appendix).

The apostrophe was omitted from all the possessive nouns, making it im-possible to distinguish between the plural and possessive solely on the basisof punctuation.6 Each compound was preceded by a contextualizing sentence,which a pilot study with NSs had confirmed would lead participants to theintended interpretation of the first noun in the compound. As the task was anLDT, it was important to have some example of nonwords included in the setof stimuli. Therefore, for every compound made up of real words, a dummycompound was also tested made up of two nonwords by changing the letters of



Table 2 Examples of stimuli tested

Example of Examples ofGroup context sentence compounds

(1) Regular plural nouns(n = 26)

I feed four cats, a Burmese, a Siameseand two lovely old Persians. I enjoybeing a

cats feeder

(2) Possessive nouns(n = 20)

Last week, I left my purse in a Londontaxi. Luckily, I managed to signal to the

taxis driver

(3) Irregular plural nouns(n = 8)

Women always get lowly jobs. In thenursery rhyme the farmer’s wife isnothing more than a

mice chaser

(4) singular noun sendingin phoneme /s/ (/z/)(n = 24)

We’ll have a larger lawn and mowing thegrass will take longer. I’m thinking ofemploying a

grass cutter

(5) singular nouns endingin a phoneme otherthan /s/ (/z/)(n = 22)

Stephen is so skilled at mixing cocktailsthat the hotel wants him to workpermanently as a

drink server

the target compounds to yield a nonce compound item that was phonologicallyplausible in English (e.g., pent rasser). Responses to these dummy compoundswere not used in any analyses. Sentences and compounds appeared centeredon the computer screen in 48-point type. Stimuli were presented on an AppleiMac computer using Psyscope software (Cohen, MacWhinney, Flatt, & Povost,1993). Response times were recorded by the Psyscope software.

ProcedureParticipants were tested individually in an experimental cubicle. A preliminarybriefing took place during which participants were told that they would beexpected to categorize a series of compounds as being made up of real words ornonwords. It was also explained that compounds should be categorized as realif they were made up of two real English words even if they were two wordsthat the participant would never use together. Participants were also told thatwords should be categorized as quickly as possible. Participants took part in sixpractice trials during which they were shown that the apostrophe would be leftout of the possessive nouns used in the experiment. At the beginning of eachtrial, a contextualizing sentence appeared on screen. Participants were requiredto read the sentence out loud, after which they pressed the space bar causingan asterisk to appear on screen and the sentence to disappear. When they were



ready to proceed, they pressed the space bar again and the compound appeared.Reaction times were recorded from the moment the participant pressed the spacebar for the second time and caused the compound to appear. Participants pressedone of two clearly marked keys on the keyboard corresponding to whether theythought the compound was a real item or not. There were 216 test trials. Eachparticipant took approximately 45 min to complete the experiment.

Results

Accuracy DataThe participants’ responses to the noun-noun compounds were coded as corrector incorrect in terms of their acceptability of the legitimate compounds inEnglish. An initial repeated measures analysis of variance was carried outwith Order as the independent-samples factor, which indicated no effect ofpresentation order; therefore, all subsequent analyses were collapsed across thisvariable. A repeated measures multivariate ANOVA was carried out with oneindependent-samples factor (Group) tested at two levels (English NS, ChineseNNS) and one related-samples factor (Word Type) tested at five levels (regularplurals, possessives, irregular plurals, singular nouns ending in /s/ [/z/], andsingular nouns ending in phoneme other than /s/ [/z/]). This analysis indicatedan effect of Group, F(1, 33) = 16.42, p < .01, an effect of Word Type, F(4,132) = 7.37, p < .01, but no Group × Word Type interaction. This analysisis illustrated in Figure 1. Tukey’s post hoc tests indicated a reliable differencein the number of errors made between items with a nonhead noun ending inphoneme /s/ (/z/) and all other word groups. Thus, the difference in errors fornonhead nouns ending in phoneme /s/ (/z/) and possessive [-s] was also reliablein this analysis.

Figure 1 illustrates that the English native speakers were over 96% accurate,and the Chinese NNSs were over 86% accurate. Therefore, neither group hadany difficulty correctly distinguishing the real words in the compounds fromthe nonce compounds.

Reaction Time DataReaction time (RT) to errors were removed from the dataset and only the RTto the real compounds were used in the RT analyses. As with the accuracydata, an initial ANOVA with Order as the only independent-samples variablewas carried out to determine whether Order had an influence on how quicklyparticipants responded on the LDT. There was no effect of Order (F < 1), soall subsequent analyses were carried out collapsed across this variable.



Figure 1 Accuracy (in percent) in lexical decision task per category of nonhead nounin compound for English NSs and Chinese NNSs.

An overall (omnibus) F test was carried out with one independent-samplesfactor (Group: English NS, Chinese NNS) and one related-samples factor (WordType: regular plurals, possessives, irregular plurals, singular nouns ending in /s/[/z/], and singular nouns ending in phoneme other than /s/ [/z/]). This analysisindicated a reliable effect of Group, F(1, 33) = 21.87, p < .01, a reliable effectof Word Type, F(4, 132) = 28.79, p < .01, and a marginal Group × Word Typeinteraction, F(4, 132) = 2.29, p = .059.

Figure 2 illustrates that for all different types of nonhead nouns, the ChineseNNSs were slower to respond on the LDT than the English NS.

To better evaluate the aims of this study, a series of planned comparisonswas carried out on the NS and NNS RT data to determine the extent to whichdifferences in responding were found across the relevant types of nonheadnouns. Due to the marked difference in the standard error for each of the twogroups (see Table 3) in addition to the unequal ns in the two groups as well as



Figure 2 Mean RTs to lexical decision on compounds with different inflection on thenonhead nouns for both English NSs and Chinese NNSs.

the nature of the research questions being investigated, all further comparisonsacross the categories of nonhead nouns within the two language groups werecarried out separately. Table 3 presents the means (and standard errors) for thedifferent categories of word type relevant for these comparisons for both groupsof participants.

Table 3 Mean RT in milliseconds (and SE) for sets of nonhead nouns in comparisons

Type of nonhead noun English NS Chinese NNS

Regular 1275 (104.00) 2181 (227.00)Possessive 1190 (93.00) 2277 (245.00)Nonhead nouns ending in

/s/ (/z/)1279.78 (99.15) 2254.19 (271.71)

Nonhead nouns not endingin /s/ (/z/)

1203.25 (97.21) 2301.36 (252.89)

Irregular 1330 (101.00) 2509 (302.00)



T tests were used to compare whether participants respond more quickly tocompounds in which the nonhead noun was a possessive, relative to those thatwere regular plurals. The English NSs responded more quickly to the nonheadnouns that ended in the possessive [-s] than the regular [-s] plural, t(21) = 2.16,p < .05; however, this was not the case for the Chinese NNSs. This findingsupports the prediction that possessive [-s] morphemes are preferred in noun-noun compounds over regular plural [-s] morphemes and that this preferenceis likely to depend on having had sufficient exposure to the input.

The next comparison examined whether participants responded differentlyto nonhead nouns that ended in /s/ (/z/) (e.g., regular plurals, possessive mor-phemes, and singular nouns that ended in /s/ [/z/]) relative to nonhead nounsthat did not end in /s/ (/z/). If an /s/ (/z/) in the word-final position is associ-ated with plurality and/or word finality, then participants would take longer torespond to compounds in which the nonhead noun ended in an /s/ (/z/) than ifthere was no /s/ (/z/) at the end of the nonhead nouns. English NS participantsresponded more quickly to compounds in which the nonhead noun did not havean /s/ (/z/) than those that did, t(21) = 4.37, p < .05. The mean RTs for theChinese NNSs were not reliably different. This finding supports the idea of thephonetic constraint proposed by Haskell et al. (2003) and the idea suggestedhere that /s/ (/z/) in the middle of a noun-noun sequence is harder to processbecause it is comparatively less frequent in the input.

Further support for this notion comes from the planned comparison car-ried out to test whether compounds with singular nonhead nouns ending ina phoneme /s/ (/z/) would be processed more slowly than compounds withsingular nonhead nouns ending in other phonemes. Native English speakersprocessed singular nonhead nouns not ending in /s/ (/z/) (e.g., drink) fasterthan they did those singular nonhead nouns that did end in /s/ (/z/) (e.g., grass),t(21) = 2.572, p < 0.05. There was no difference in this comparison for theChinese NNSs. Native speakers of English took longer to respond to com-pounds that ended in /s/ (/z/), even when the /s/ (/z/) was a phoneme and servedno morphological function, relative to those nonhead nouns that did not end in/s/ (/z/). The Chinese NNS participants, who had significantly less exposure toauthentic input, did not differ in this comparison.

A final comparison compared possessive morphology on nonhead nounsrelative to irregulars. Recall from Table 1 that Haskell et al.’s (2003) modelpredicted that irregulars and possessives would both be marginally acceptablewithin compounds, given that they both violate one of the two constraints. Ifthis were the case, then possessives would not be different than irregulars onthis task. In this study, English NSs were faster to respond to compounds with



possessive morphology on the nonhead noun than to compounds with irreg-ular nonhead noun plurals, t(21) = 3.45, p < .01. This result is particularlyinteresting, as the frequency of the irregular nouns used in these stimuli wassignificantly higher than the possessive items, and yet the NSs were slowerto respond to these in noun-noun compounds. Again, there was no reliabledifference in this comparison for the Chinese NNSs. This comparison doesnot support Haskell et al.’s suggestion that possessives and irregulars in com-pounds are both marginally acceptable but does support the suggestion madein this article that learning about where possessives are allowed in noun-nounsequences is a key to understanding why learners exclude regular plurals incompounds in English.

Discussion

The purpose of this study was to explore the idea that the input to which En-glish learners (both L1 and L2) are exposed is sufficient to lead to regularplurals being excluded from within English noun-noun deverbal compounds.Haskell et al. (2003) had argued that both phonetic and semantic constraintsthat are learned from the input can lead to English NSs dissociating regu-lar from irregular plurals within compounds. Two issues related to Haskellet al.’s model were explored in this article. The first was whether English NSsresponded more quickly to possessive [-s] morphology in compounds than reg-ular plural morphology. The hypothesis was that in English, learners excludeplurals from compounds because the sequence “noun–[-s] morpheme–noun”in English more frequently marks possession. If this idea is valid, then learnerswould process possessive morphemes within compounds more quickly thanregular plurals. This was important because previous studies had shown thatL2 learners, like NSs of English, tend not to produce regular plurals withincompounds (e.g., Lardiere, 1995; Murphy, 2000). Whether they would showthe same preferences (as measured by RT) to different types of inflection withincompounds was an issue worth investigating.

The important data for the focus of this article was the RT data, although theaccuracy data were useful to illustrate that the task was easily completed for allparticipants. Separate comparisons revealed that only the NSs of English werefaster to respond to compounds with possessive morphology relative to regularplural morphology. Furthermore, only the NSs of English processed compoundswithout an /s/ (/z/) on the nonhead noun faster than those compounds with aninternal /s/ (/z/) on the nonhead noun. Finally, only the NSs of English processed



singular nonhead noun compounds more quickly than other singular nonheadnouns that ended in a phoneme /s/ (/z/).

These results support the notion that English learners might exclude regularplurals within compounds because possessive morphemes consistently appearinternal to noun-noun sequences in English. Like Haskell et al. (2003), thesefindings are consistent with the view that learning about a wider range of pat-terns in English, such as prenominal modifiers and possessive morphology, canlead learners to exclude regular morphemes from within compounds, withouthaving to invoke some supposed innate constraint. The dual-mechanism modelbars any regular “rule-based” inflection internal to compounds. If all regularinflections were to be barred from compounds, then neither regular plurals norpossessive forms would appear within compounds. The possessive form withina compound is productive and, therefore, its occurrence raises a problem for thedual-mechanism model. Furthermore, if all regular inflections were prohibitedfrom compounds, then participants would respond similarly to both regularplural inflection and regular possessive inflection. The findings in this studyillustrate that the NSs responded more quickly to the possessive inflection.An account that argues for a constraint against regular morphology in com-pounds is less consistent with these findings than an account that is based onthe occurrence of patterns in the input.

Cunnings and Clahsen (2007) suggested that items that were “morphologi-cally and semantically singular but phonologically resemble the plural” (p. 481)would be better tests of the original Haskell et al. (2003) claim. The possessiveform is both morphologically and semantically singular and yet participantsrespond more quickly to these items in an LDT. The participants were slowerto respond to items with an orthographic “s,” which is phonetically realizedas either the /s/or /z/ phoneme at the end of the nonhead noun—a phonemethat does not have a morphological function, but if phonetically realized, wouldsound like a plural form. These findings are more consistent with an input-based account than an account that argues that morphology is prohibited withincompounds. Both the possessive [-s] compounds and the compounds in whichthe nonhead noun ends in an /s/ (/z/) phoneme that is not a plural are examplesof those items that are morphologically and semantically singular but soundplural. The participants respond more quickly to one type (possessive [-s]) andmore slowly to the other (phonetic /s/ [/z/]). These findings are consistent withthe input-based account because it is the relative occurrence of these itemsin the input that is likely to be causing the differential response times. NSparticipants responded more quickly to the possessive [-s] items because theyoccur relatively frequently in the input. The same participants responded more



slowly to the phoneme /s/ (/z/) items because they are comparatively infre-quent. A final piece of evidence that supports this conclusion comes from thecomparison between the possessive [-s] compounds and those with irregularinflection. Both types of inflections should be licensed within compounds, butthe NS participants were faster to respond to the possessive [-s] morphologyin compounds than the irregular plurals. Again, the likely explanation for thisfinding is that possessive [-s] morphology is comparatively frequent in com-pounds relative to irregular plural morphology. Despite these findings and theirimplications, however, a stronger test of an input-based approach would focuson language development as opposed to only processing, as was carried outin this study. Although these preliminary data from a processing-oriented taskwas encouraging, further research could explore the precise role of differentinput factors on the development of language (both the L1 and L2).

The fact that the advanced L2 learners of English did not show the samepreferences (as measured by RTs) as the NSs further suggests that the keyis learning about these different patterns, which takes time. Given that inprevious compound production studies (e.g., Clahsen, 1995; Lardiere, 1995;Murphy, 2000), L2 learners have shown the same pattern as NSs in terms ofexcluding regular plurals underscores this point. The NNSs tested in this studypresumably had not had sufficient exposure to English to have establishedspecific preferences for when [-s] (or /s/ [/z/]) is allowed within compounds.However, what is missing from this study is whether these same NNSs wouldhave excluded regular plurals from compounds in production. It is likely theywould have because they were advanced learners of English and other researchthat has tested L2 learners’ compound production in this way has consistentlyshown a tendency to exclude regulars from compounds (Clahsen, 1995; Garcı́aMayo, 2006; Lardiere, 1995; Murphy, 2000); thus, there is no reason to expectthat the L2 learners in this study would not have also done also.

It is somewhat surprising, however, that these advanced L2 learners did notshow a difference in processing between the nonhead nouns that did not end in/s/ (/z/) (drink) relative to those that did (grass). If, as suggested here, learnerslearn that /s/ (/z/) internal to a noun-noun sequence is a sequence predominantlyused for marking possession, then presumably these L2 learners should alsohave preferred singular nonhead nouns not ending in /s/ (/z/) over those that didend in /s/ (/z/). It could be that this more processing-oriented (not production)task was generally more difficult for them, which led them to take longer acrossall categories of nonhead nouns. Alternatively, it could be that even advancedlearners of English did not yet have enough exposure to English and the relevantdistributional patterns of phonemes and morphemes in different sequences to



show the same preferences as the NSs. In any case, it is clear that more workneeds to be done to more precisely measure the development of many differentaspects of morphology in tandem, in both children learning English as theirL1 and learners who are developing their knowledge of English as an L2. Forexample, Cunnings and Clahsen’s (2007) paradigm using eye movements inonline compound processing would be an appropriate methodology to use here.It might also be useful to compare within one study the different methodologiesused to identify the extent to which the findings are consistent.

The findings in the present study are largely consistent with the constraintsatisfaction model of Haskell et al. (2003), in that differences were found be-tween regular and possessive morphology on the nonhead noun in EnglishNSs. Haskell et al. argued that regulars violating both semantic and phoneticconstraints would be less preferable within compounds than possessives. Theirmodel also predicted that irregular and possessives within compounds wouldbe equally marginal. However, the RT data for NSs show that they are fasterto respond to possessive morphology on the nonhead noun than irregular mor-phology, despite the fact that the post hoc tests on the mean frequencies ofthese items showed that the irregulars had a higher mean frequency than thepossessives. Research on lexical access has shown that high-frequency itemstend to be responded to more quickly than lower frequency items (e.g., Alario,Costa, & Caramazza, 2002); yet the reverse pattern was found here. This resultsuggests that these items (irregulars and possessives) are not equally marginalin compounds, but, rather, the possessives are “preferred” over the irregularsin compounds as measured by RTs. This finding is consistent with the idea thatthe input is an important factor here because irregular plural nouns are rare innaturally occurring noun-noun compounds. Thus, despite their overall higherfrequency, when irregulars appear in a noun-noun compound, they take longerto process than possessive nouns that do appear in the input. This comparisonalso supports the suggestion that learning about possessive morphology in En-glish is a key ingredient leading English speakers to exclude regular inflectionfrom within compounds. The fact that the Chinese NNSs did not show thiseffect again supports the suggestion that learning about these patterns requiressufficient exposure to the input. Therefore, although Haskell et al.’s (2003)explanation of how learners of English come to exclude regular plurals fromcompounds goes a long way in explaining this aspect of the interaction betweeninflectional morphologies in compounds, the evidence presented in this articleillustrates that, minimally, their model needs to be expanded to take into accountthe particular contribution made by learning about the possessive morphemein English, for both L1 and L2 learners.



Another interesting issue that this study raises is the difference betweenproduction and lexical decision tasks. As identified earlier, most of the studiescarried out to date investigating different types of inflections within compoundshave either used a compound production task (e.g., Clahsen, 1995; Lardiere,1995; Murphy, 2000) or a preference task (Haskell et al., 2003; Senghas et al.,1991). These tasks have shown that participants will produce irregular pluralsin compounds more than regulars or choose an irregular plural within a com-pound more often than a regular plural when asked directly for their preference.However, this study illustrates that when asked to process compounds with ir-regular morphology, NSs tend to take longer to do so than with possessives.Although participants might occasionally produce irregulars in compound elic-itation tasks, the evidence presented here shows that they take longer to decidethat an irregular plural in a compound is acceptable over a possessive noun.This difference highlights the importance of using different tasks, because theproduction data might lead one to conclude that learners somehow “like” ir-regulars in compounds. In fact, the review of the literature presented in Hayes,Smith, and Murphy (2005) illustrates that as the NS participants get older,fewer and fewer plurals of any type (either regular or irregular) are producedwithin compounds. The children tested in studies such as Gordon (1985) andthe L2 learners tested in studies such as Lardiere (1995) and Murphy (2000)are likely then to have excluded regular plurals from their compounds becauseof the competition between the regular and possessive morpheme (i.e., theywill have already had sufficient input to know that the sequence “noun–[-s]morpheme–noun” is reserved for marking possession in English). They mayhave included irregulars, however, because there is no competition betweenirregular plural morphology and possessive morphology.

The findings presented in this article are preliminary at this point and theconclusions drawn from this study must be considered within the method-ological constraints inherent in the design (e.g., small sample sizes, unequalvariability across groups, limitations of the stimuli, etc.). These preliminary re-sults, however, are encouraging and warrant more research with larger samplesizes, different types of processing tasks, stimuli, and methodologies to obtaina more detailed and clearer picture of the co-influence of different morpholog-ical forms with respect to the interaction between inflectional morphology andcompounding. Other issues that need exploring include uncovering how muchinput is required before a learner of English comes to work out the relativepatterns of where different aspects of morphology appear in English gram-mar. How long does it take for a learner of English to learn that the sequence“noun–[-s]–noun” more frequently marks possession? When does a preference



manifest in a production task become measurable in lexical access or compre-hension tasks? Further work is required on children learning English as their L1and L2 learners of English in different language learning contexts (specificallywhere the exposure to English is different) to be able to answer these questions.It would be profitable also to start using more sophisticated measures, such asin Cunnings and Clahsen (2007), who measured eye movements in reading tospecify where these differences are occurring. Having done so, the evidencewill more clearly identify the relative contribution that learning about otherprenominal modifiers has to English compound production and processing.

Revised version accepted 10 September 2009

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Appendix

List of Words (Compounds) Used as Stimuli

Singular nonhead nounsRegular plurals Possessives ending in /s/ (/z/) phonemes

cuts maker girls painter kiss stealertwins minder taxis driver lass chaserclaims processor cars seller floss holderAutomatic Weapons locator swans keeper brass playerrecords keeper goats washer hiss makerAdmissions coordinator mugs user class judgerdrinks server cars protector mess makerwages earner fines payer dross seekercalves exerciser gowns maker fuss makernurses trainer dogs walker grass cutterfoxes watcher guns holder moss clearercases carrier rats feeder loss leaderhorses groomer birds trainer glass washerhouses finder lamps lighter pass markergates opener meals server cuss sayercats feeder jumpers knitter bliss makerdogs washer bolts mender mass producerParks runner pigs feeder bass playerathletes trainer plumbers employer gas heaterlogs carrier cows leader bus travellercars washer news editorTerms user cross stitcherschools inspector ass feedermonths counter boss judgerhands washerweeks planner

(Continued)



Appendix

Continued

Singular nonhead nouns not endingIrregular plurals in the phoneme /s/ or/z/

teeth cleaner baby feederfeet washer car parkerwomen painter claim stakerlice finder record holdermen chaser dog trainergeese keeper park cleanermice chaser friend seekerchildren minder bull rider

calf washerwork avoidercat mindergirl chaseradmission checkergate closerweapon loaderhome carertwin testerdrink mixerrecord holderproject loserlog burner


processing english compounds in the first and second laguage ,the influence of the middle morpheme

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