Conceptual Combinations: The Role of Similarity

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Abstract
Noun-noun compounds, such as shark lawyer, are claimed to be interpreted via property construction when the noun concepts are similar (Wisniewski, 1996). In Experiment 1, noun-noun compounds with dissimilar constituents were derived from metaphors and were given to participants for interpretation. Property construction interpretations were overwhelmingly preferred, despite the dissimilarity of the constituents. In Experiment 2, noun-noun compounds with dissimilar constituents that satisfied theoretical criteria for metaphorical property attribution (Glucksberg, McGlone, & Manfredi, 1997) were interpreted via property construction. In contrast, compounds with highly similar constituents were interpreted primarily via hybridizational. We consider the implications of these findings for (a) the boundary conditions for the role of similarity in choice of noun-noun compound interpretation and (b) the automaticity of metaphor comprehension.

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