When comprehending combined concepts (e.g., 'peeled apples'), two kinds of features are potentially accessible. Phrase features are true only of the phrase (e.g., "white"), while noun features are true of both the phrase and the head noun (e.g., "round"). Phrase features are verified more quickly and more accurately than noun features. No satisfactory account of this phrase feature priority has been put forth. We propose that relevance can explain the phrase feature priority. In Experiment 1, the differential accessibility of noun and phrase features was reversed by context paragraphs that made noun features relevant. Experiment 2 more subtly replicated this effect using a single-word context. We conclude that the phrase feature priority is attributable to the discourse strategy of assigning relevance to modifiers of combined concepts.

We examine how context affects the accessibility of features of combined concepts. A 'contrast hypothesis' suggests that contrasting a to-be-verified feature in the context hinders its later verification. Results of Experiment 1 instead support a priming hypothesis whereby features are differentially activated by contexts. Experiment 2 demonstrates that this priming effect is positive rather than negative, even when feature verification follows a contextual combined concept that is inconsistent with the to-be-verified feature. We conclude that context can differentially activate features of combined concepts, and that it may do so by way of semantic priming.