Morphological encoding of Mandarin Chinese: evidence from Chinese disyllabic compound words

Abstract

This dissertation focuses on the central research question of how Mandarin compound words are represented during language production. Specifically, it examines whether compound words are stored in the mental lexicon in a decomposed or holistic manner. If decomposition occurs during production, at what level does it take place? To explore the representation of Mandarin compound words during lexical selection, this dissertation investigates two primary hypotheses: the morphological decomposition hypothesis and the full-listing hypothesis. The former posits that compound words are represented in the mental lexicon through their constituent morphemes, which play a role in lexical retrieval. In contrast, the latter asserts that compound words are stored as whole units, negating the involvement of morphemes in lexical retrieval. The aim of this research is to uncover how Mandarin Chinese compound words are represented at the level of lexical selection during speech production.