The goal of this thesis is to determine the factors that affect the decomposability of affixed words in a cross linguistic level by conducting two experiments, the first in English and the second...Show moreThe goal of this thesis is to determine the factors that affect the decomposability of affixed words in a cross linguistic level by conducting two experiments, the first in English and the second in Modern Greek language. With the term decomposability I refer to the property of affixed words to be broken down to their basic components in order to be semantically defined. Native speakers are able to distinguish and seperate their language's complex words into their basic morphemes. One of the main factors that is suspected to affect the decomposability of affixed words is the relative frequency of the words themselves. After I provide sufficient information about the specifics of relative frequency and other possible factors that can affect the decomposability of affixed words, I will present in detail the two experiments that were performed along with their results. The thesis will conclude with a discussion of the results before determining whether the examined factors share the same effects in both languages and examining if the possibility of other factors that affect the phenomenon of decomposability in a cross-linguistic level may exist or not.Show less
