Interpretability norms for novel words and nonwords

The lexicon of a language is subject to constant change, and new words constantly enter the lexicon. In principle, any word form that is not currently in the lexicon but adheres to the orthotactic rules of a language can be a novel word, including morphologically complex words but also pseudowords. However, such novel words differ in their semantic interpretability – how easily speakers can come up with an interpretation for them – which is of interest as both an independent and dependent variable in theory-building, computational modelling, and empirical studies. Here, we provide an overview of studies that make available (large) norms of semantic interpretability ratings and judgments, which will serve as a useful resource for such studies.