ABSTRACT
We investigate the role that frequency plays in the storage of morpheme pairs as lexical units. That is, do frequency differences distinguish compounds and phrases? Two hypotheses are considered: 1. Frequency of Co-occurrence (FOC): assumes that a morpheme pair will be stored if the constituents co-occur with sufficient frequency. 2. Idiomaticity (ID): assumes that a morpheme pair will be stored if the combined meaning is sufficiently unpredictable from the meaning of the constituent morphemes. We contrast two sets of morpheme pairs: Transparent pairs (i.e. phrases) whose meaning is generally derived from the constituents, e.g. "black coat", and Idiomatic pairs (i.e. compounds) whose meaning is not entirely derived from the constituents, e.g. "blackboard". If the two sets are matched for frequency of morpheme co-occurrence and for the frequency of the constituent morphemes, then FOC predicts that the two sets should be comparable on relevant behavioral measures since frequency is held constant. In contrast, ID predicts behavioral consequences based on the differences in idiomaticity even for frequency matched sets.
