Semantic activation and time course of ambiguous morphemes and whole words in Chinese compounds

Combining the event-related potential (ERP) and masking priming paradigms, this study aims to resolve the theoretical debate between the meaning computation model and the dual-path competition model in the processing of Chinese compound words by comparing the influence of ambiguous morpheme semantics (the same as or different from the target word) and position (head or tail) on target words. Results showed no significant difference in reaction time and ERP components when the ambiguous morpheme was at the head position of the priming word under the same and different semantic conditions. When the ambiguous morpheme was at the tail position, different semantics induced a larger N400 component and longer reaction time. These findings indicate that head morphemes activate each of their semantic meanings, while tail morphemes activate semantics associated with the whole word, taking longer activation time compared with whole-word semantics. Overall, this study supports the view of the dual-path competition model.