How Many Rooms in an Octopus Apartment? Effects of Prosody on Conceptual Combination

Previous theories of conceptual combination have failed to address the possible role of suprasegmental factors such as prosodic emphasis patterns. Here, we investigated the effect of emphasising the initial word (modifier emphasis), both words (dual emphasis), or the final word (head emphasis) on people’s interpretations of novel noun-noun compounds (e.g., octopus apartment). We found that dual emphasis alone affects the frequency of production and speed of propertyand relationbased interpretations. People produced more relation-based (e.g., an octopus apartment is where an octopus lives) than property-based (e.g., an octopus apartment has eight rooms) interpretations when compounds were presented with dual emphasis than in written form. Additionally, dual emphasis caused people to arrive at property-based interpretations more rapidly than relation-based interpretations. Findings are discussed with reference to existing theories of conceptual