A judgment study of word-length preferences in Chinese NN compounds

Abstract Some seemingly robust linguistic generalizations remain controversial for years, often for lack of experimental verification. As a case study, we examine word length preferences in Chinese NN compounds. Since the original observation of Lu (1963) , there has been a broad consensus that 1+2 (monosyllabic + disyllabic) is ill formed, while 2+1, 2+2 and 1+1 are well-formed. In addition, it has been shown that the preferences can be derived from metrical principles. However, a judgment experiment is yet to be offered to verify the preferences, and without it some scholars remain skeptical. We offer such an experimental study, in which 15 native speakers are asked to rate the acceptability of 1,132 randomly generated NN compounds, with 283 each of the four length patterns. It is found that 2+2 is the most acceptable, followed by 2+1, while 1+2 and 1+1 are the least acceptable. The high rating of 2+2 and the low rating of 1+2 support previous predictions. The rating for 2+1 is slightly lower than expected, and that of 1+1 is most unexpected. It is also found that four other factors (the naturalness of the referent, homograph ambiguity, the boundness of a morpheme, and frequency) have significant effects on acceptability judgment, although their sizes are smaller than that of the length effect.