Morphosyntax, prosody, and linking elements: the auditory processing of German nominal compounds

& The morphosyntactic decomposition of German compound words and a proposed function of linking elements were examined during auditory processing using event-related brain potentials. In Experiment 1, the syntactic gender agreement was manipulated between a determiner and the initial compound constituent (the ‘‘nonhead’ ’ constituent), and between a determiner and the last constituent (‘‘head’’). Although only the head is (morpho)syntactically relevant in German, both constituents elicited a left-anterior negativity if its gender was incongruent. This strongly suggests that com-pounds are morphosyntactically decomposed. Experiment 2 tested the function of those linking elements which are homophonous to plural morphemes. It has been previously suggested that these indicate the number of nonhead con-stituents. The number agreement was manipulated for both constituents analogous to Experiment 1. Number-incongruent heads, but not nonhead constituents, elicited an N400 and a subsequent broad negativity, suggesting that linking elements are not processed as plural morphemes. Experiment 3 showed that prosodic cues (duration and fundamental frequency) are employed to differentiate between compounds and single nouns and, thereby, betwen linking elements and plural mor-phemes. Number-incongruent words elicited a broad neg-ativity if they were produced with a single noun prosody; the same words elicited no event-related potential effect if produced with a compound prosody. A dual-route model can account for the influence of prosody on morphosyntactic processing. &amp