ABSTRACT
The production of novel noun-noun compounds is a prime example of everyday linguistic creativity. What cognitive processes guide people’s choice of words when they make up a new noun-noun compound? An experiment examined people’s production of noun-noun compounds as names for novel objects. The results showed that people’s choice of words in these novel compounds was influenced by the diagnosticity of properties in those objects. By contrast, people’d choice of words did not seem to be influenced by the communicative precision of the resulting compounds. These results suggest that, in constructing novel compounds, people are guided by conceptual representation rather than communicative task.
