This thesis describes a study in which Dutch learners of English are asked to interpret a set of novel Dutch and English noun-noun compounds. The complete set of test items is divided into a set...Show moreThis thesis describes a study in which Dutch learners of English are asked to interpret a set of novel Dutch and English noun-noun compounds. The complete set of test items is divided into a set with compounds designed to encourage participants to select the appropriate semantic relation in the compound, and another set with compounds designed to elicit figurative interpretations. The thesis investigates whether there are significant differences between Dutch ESL learners’ interpretations of Dutch (L1) novel noun-noun compounds and their interpretations of English (L2) compounds. Differences were found for the figurative compounds, but not for the relation-based compounds.Show less