Word Order Effects in Conceptual Combination

The combination of two existing words is a productive strategy used by speakers to convey new concepts and extend the limits of their vocabulary. In English compounds, the first word or modifier attaches further meaning to the second word or head, thus creating a reference to the intended concept. According to Gagné and Shoben’s (1997) Competition Among Relations In Nominals (CARIN) theory, there is a fixed, relatively small taxonomy of standard relations that can be used to link the modifier and head noun concepts. According to this theory, the most available standard relation is the one most frequently used to interpret other compounds containing that same modifier. We investigated whether the alleged importance of the modifier in relation selection is due to the fact that it comes first or whether it can be attributed to the modifier’s functional role. Accordingly, we conducted our study in French, a language in which the order of the nouns is the reverse of that in English.