From ‘<i>jellyfish’</i> to ‘<i>poisson de gelée’</i>

Abstract This study investigated the representation of compound words in the mental lexicon by examining compound word production in bilingual speakers with aphasia. Eight bilingual speakers with aphasia named pictures of concepts with either compound or (non-compound) simple names in both of their languages. Error types were coded and analysed within and across languages with a particular focus on constituent and language mixing errors in compound words. Four participants showed significantly greater accuracy for simple than compound words, three in their dominant and/or more proficient language, and one in their non-dominant language. Constituent errors were observed for all eight bilingual participants during compound word naming, while language mixing errors were observed in six participants. The observed error patterns support co-activation of (compound) representations during word retrieval in bilingual speakers. Language mixing errors suggest that the bilingual lexicon stores a morphologically structured compound representation, an assumption that is consistent with a multiple-lemma representation of compounds. Further research is required to explore the extent to which constituent-specific access processes are at play in bilingual compound production.