Abstract

Compound word spacing is quite a complex and ambiguous issue in Korean grammar. To establish a more clear and efficient grammar, many empirical findings need to be accumulated. The purpose of this study is to find out how spacing affects the understanding of Korean compound nouns when reading natural sentences. In this study, compound nouns formed by combining two or three constituents(each word that makes up a compound noun has two syllables) were used as stimuli, which are permitted in both spaced and unspaced forms under the current Korean grammar rules. These manipulated compound noun phrases were embedded in same sentences. Participants read a sentence containing a compound noun phrase for each trial and responded to a simple question of judging true or false about the sentence. In the meantime, the eye movements of the participants were recorded. The overall results showed that the spaced conditions were longer in several eye movement measures such as the total time(TT) compared to the unspaced conditions. There was no significant difference in the correct rate of true/false questions between the two conditions, so it was plausible that there was no notable difference in the degree of comprehension of sentences. Therefore, we concluded that for the type of Korean compound word used in the experiment (2syllables × 2, 2syllables × 3), information is processed faster when not spaced. Interestingly, we also found the interaction between the number of constituent words in compound words and the existence of space on the gaze duration(GZD), and similar tendencies on other eye movement measures were observed. Based on these results, this study suggested that the effect of spacing may vary depending on the length or composition of compound words.