Abstract: Category effect of combined concept is defined that the interpretations of interpret combined concepts from different category are different. The present study justified the role of feature types of sub-concepts in category effect of combined concept by using feature listing experiment and path model. The results of feature listing experiment showed that living things had more entity features, whereas artifacts had more situation features. The results of path analysis showed that: (a) Entity features of modifiers influenced property interpretation rates significantly, (b) but situation features of head nouns had no significant influence on relation interpretation rates, and (c) category still significantly influenced interpretation rates after feature types entered the path model. The difference between feature types of living things and artifacts might not be the only factor that causes category effect on interpretation of conceptual combination, and more factors should be investigated in future.

Key words: combined concept, interpretation strategy, category effect, feature type, path model