Grammatical-gender effects in noun–noun compound production: Evidence from German

Abstract

We examined how noun–noun compounds and their syntactic properties are lexically stored and processed in speech production. Using gender-marked determiner primes (der_masc, die_fem, das_neut [the]) in a picture naming task, we tested for specific effects from determiners congruent with either the modifier or the head of the compound target (e.g., Tee_masckanne_fem [teapot]) to examine whether the constituents are processed independently at the syntactic level. Experiment 1 assessed effects of auditory gender-marked determiner primes in bare noun picture naming, and Experiment 2 assessed effects of visual gender-marked determiner primes in determiner–noun picture naming. Three prime conditions were implemented: (a) head-congruent determiner (e.g., die_fem), (b) modifier-congruent determiner (e.g., der_masc), and (c) incongruent determiner (e.g., das_neuter). We observed a facilitation effect of head congruency but no effect of modifier congruency. In Experiment 3, participants produced novel noun–noun compounds in response to two pictures, demanding independent processing of head and modifier at the syntactic level. Now, head and modifier congruency effects were obtained, demonstrating the general sensitivity of our task. Our data support the notion of a single-lemma representation of lexically stored compound nouns in the German production lexicon.