Abstract Hyponymy is a semantic relation of class inclusion (e.g., a cat is an animal; a wildcat is a cat). Compound words are often, but not always, in a hyponymic relationship with the second constituent of the compound, as in wildcat and cat. This paper introduces a set of human ratings of hyponymy for over 2500 English compound words, which will facilitate research on the role of hyponymy in compound word processing and related areas. In the compound word processing literature, the semantic transparency of the compound (i.e., the extent to which the meaning of the constituents is maintained in the compound) is a critical theoretical construct. We investigate the role that hyponymy plays in the semantic transparency of compound words, as well as in the processing of compound words. We find that hyponymy is a critical component of the semantic transparency of both the second constituent (e.g., cat) and the compound as a whole (e.g., wildcat) and somewhat surprisingly also of the first constituent (e.g., wild). Hyponymy also affects the speed of processing of compound words in both lexical decision and naming.

中文翻译：

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毛茛是杯子的一种吗？复合词中的下位和语义透明性

摘要 下位词是类包含的语义关系（例如，猫是动物；野猫是猫）。复合词通常（但不总是）与复合词的第二个成分有下义关系，如野猫和猫。本文介绍了一套人类对 2500 多个英语复合词下位词的评级，这将有助于研究下位词在复合词处理及相关领域中的作用。在复合词处理文献中，复合词的语义透明度（即成分的含义在复合词中保持的程度）是一个关键的理论结构。我们研究下位词在复合词的语义透明度以及复合词的处理中所起的作用。我们发现下位词是第二个成分（例如，cat）和复合词作为一个整体（例如，wildcat）的语义透明度的关键组成部分，并且有点令人惊讶地也是第一个成分（例如，wild）。下位也影响复合词在词汇决定和命名方面的处理速度。