Word processing through lexical decision in Brazilian Portuguese

Abstract This study investigates word processing in Brazilian Portuguese, focusing on blends, which juxtapose or overlap (W)ords and/or (C)lips (e.g. portunhol = (portu)guês ‘Portuguese’ + espa(nhol) ‘Spanish’). Blends present intriguing theoretical and empirical challenges to models of morphological analysis, morphological processing, lexical access, and the mental lexicon. Most research on blends has been conducted in languages other than Portuguese. This study addresses this gap by exploring the processing of blends in Brazilian Portuguese through a behavioral lexical decision experiment. We manipulated blends in constituent structure and grammatical structure, considering (H)ead and (M)odification. Additionally, we compared blends against words with various morphological structures, such as derived complex words containing prefixes (e.g., [des]acordo ‘disagreement’) or suffixes (e.g., cozinh[eiro] ‘cook’), and monomorphemic simplex words. We also included simplex and complex pseudowords (e.g., [acont]arago ; dador[eiro] ) and nonwords (e.g., sfaricrelj ) in the experiment. Accuracy and reaction time results suggest that blends are accepted and processed differently from simplex and complex words, resembling pseudowords. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of blend description and processing, providing valuable insights into lexical access, enhancing theoretical and empirical comprehension of morphological processing.