Abstract: The purpose of this study was to explore the processing of Chinese idioms.The materials used in the study included:(1) idioms of verb-object structure which have both literal and figurative meaings;(2) phrases of the same structure as(1);(3)idioms of modifier-modified structure which have both literal and figurative meanings;(4)phrases of the same structure as(3);(5)idioms of the same structure as(1) which only have figurative meaning;(6)words.All of these items consist of 3 characters, and are familiar to the subjects.Subjects were presented with these materials and(7) three character nonsense items and were asked to judge whether these items made sense.The RT of all kinds of idioms showed no significant differences. The effect of syntax structure in idiom comprehension was not significant and so was the difference between double-meaning idioms and single-meaning idioms. The effect of idiom form was significant.They were shorter than that of phrases,and longer than that of words.The results basically supported the simultaneous processing model of idiom comprehension. In addition,the article discussed the problem of lexicalization of idiom.

Key words: idiom, language comprehension, language processing