Nominal compounds and complex noun phrases in reading acquisition

Abstract

Information density in German academic language is inter alia due to the high incidence of compounds and complex noun phrases. Their length and their morphosyntactic complexity have the potential to make nov-ice readers struggle. It is an open question whether the alternative constructions differ in processing complexity and whether their relative ease alters during reading acquisition. A self-paced reading experiment tested silent reading of compounds and complex noun phrases in sentence contexts. Critical phrases referred to part-whole relations, e.g., compound Apfelkern (‛apple seed’), noun phrase with genitive-marked attribute Kern des Apfels (seed the-genitive apple), and noun phrase with prepositional attribute Kern vom Apfel (‛seed of the apple’). Second and fourth graders participated in the experiment. More advanced readers performed faster than be-ginning readers. Both groups read compounds and noun phrases with prepositional attributes faster than noun phrases with genitive-marked attributes. There was no effect of linguistic background. These findings relativize the simplification potential of syntactic paraphrases for novice readers of academic language.