Abstract: Whether Chinese compound words are represented in a decomposed way or as a whole in our mental lexicon is a long lasting heated debate in the literature. Theoretically, compound words can be accessed much faster as one unitary unit than as two decomposed units. Thus, it is not surprising that whole word representation was supported by several theoretical models. Empirically, both behavioral and eye movement studies call attention to the importance of compound words both in visual word processing and normal Chinese reading. Such evidence may suggest that Chinese compound words have word-level representations in the mental lexicon and are activated during word processing. However, these studies did not make a distinction among the three different kinds of word-level representations-phonological, semantic and orthographic representations, as suggested by The Constituency Model. Further examination of previous studies highlights some evidence that supports the independent existence of word-level phonological and semantic representations; yet few literatures addresses an independent orthographic representation at the word level. To fill up this research gap and paint a panorama picture of the mental representation of Chinese compound words, this article attempts to propose a number of possible methods to test it as well as analyzing factors that may affect experiments.

Key words: compound words, word-level representation, orthographic representation, semantic transparency, mental lexicon

摘要： 关于汉语合成词的表征方式历来存在争论：是分解式表征还是整词式表征?文章阐述了整词式表征存在的心理可能性和实验证据,并指出该表征由语音、语义和字形三种不可分割的表征形式构成。前人研究表明,合成词在语音和语义层面可能拥有整词表征,但目前鲜有研究探讨整词词形表征存在的合理性。据此,文章试图寻找考察整词词形表征的研究范式及可能影响汉语合成词词形表征特点的语言因素。

关键词: 合成词, 整词表征, 词形表征, 语义透明度, 心理词典