Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 May 2019
The present study examined whether Chinese-English bilinguals showed morphological sensitivity toward prefixed words. In the experiment, English monolinguals showed masked priming effects in a Transparent condition (disagree-AGREE) and an Opaque condition (mischief-CHIEF), but not in a Form condition (stranger-ANGER). In contrast, bilinguals showed equivalent priming effects across the three conditions. Indeed, the difference between the magnitude of priming in the Form condition relative to that in the other two conditions was statistically smaller for the bilinguals than for the monolinguals. These findings suggest Chinese-English bilinguals are less sensitive to the morphological status of prefixes, compared with monolinguals.
The research was supported by a grant from Zhejiang Philosophy and Social Science Fund (19NDJC184YB). The authors would like to thank editor and anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.
The experiment in this article earned an Open Materials badge for transparent practices. The materials are available at https://www.iris-database.org/iris/app/home/detail?id=york:936203.