過去在語言學領域中，構詞學之研究較不受人重視，令人欣慰的是近來已有愈來愈多學者投入此部分之研究。本論文的目的有二：一是從中、西理論語言學的觀點來介紹如何區分中文與其他語言之複合字；另一是報告一實證性研究結果。此研究探索四十位美國人與四十位日本人在學習中文不同型式之複合字時所可能遭遇之困難，結果顯示儘管不同型式之複合字會影響這兩組受試者之受測表現，但兩組之表現不盡相同，此差異或許是受到其母語之影響。

Research in the field of linguistics has focused on syntax and grammar, while studies related to morphology have been relatively underrepresented. However, recent developments in linguistics have prompted researchers’ to pay greater attention to lexicon and morphology. The aim of this paper is two-fold. One objective is to provide, from the perspectives of theoretical linguistics, a descriptive machinery that could serve as guidelines for distinguishing Chinese compounds from other concatenations. The other is to provide an exploratory study investigating the difficulty that adult learners of Chinese as a second language may have when learning compounds of different internal construction. The results indicated that while some types of Chinese compounds were easier than other types for both groups of American and Japanese participants, the compound-recognition and compound-production performance of one group was different from that of the other. Furthermore, it seemed likely that the performances of the two groups were related to features of their mother tongue. The present study extends the scope of morphological studies and, more importantly, the findings contribute to a better understanding of what strategies L2 learners may adopt and what role learners’ mother tongue may play in their compound-acquiring process.