Diversity in the interpretation of compound nouns resulting from word ambiguity
What is it about?
When people see a new compound noun (e.g. zoom shirt) for the first time, they can interpret it in many ways. We asked people to tell us what they thought some new compound words meant. We found that there are usually more possible meanings than researchers have tended to assume. The number of possible meanings depends to a large extent on the degree of ambiguity of the words making up the compound. Compounds with more possible meanings are also perceived as being more difficult to interpret.
Why is it important?
This finding is important because compound nouns make up a large part of the vocabulary of many languages and are especially important as a way of forming words for new concepts. However, much work on the psychology of language, as well as computational work on language, tends to assume that compounds have just one meaning. The role of word ambiguity in shaping individual speakers' interpretations has been neglected up until now.