Representation and processing of derived words

Abstract

Two visual, lexical decision experiments with Italian derived words are reported. The issue addressed was whether or not derived words with highly productive derivational suffixes (-zione, -mento, -tore, etc.) that do not alter the orthographic/phonological characteristics of the base form, are processed/represented in a morphologically decomposed form. Experimentally, the issue investigated was whether it is the frequency of the root-morpheme of the word, the frequency of the whole word, or both that determines decision latencies and errors. Results indicate that there is an effect of both root frequency and whole-word frequency on lexical decision performance and errors to derived words. This result is interpreted within the framework of the Augmented Addressed Morphology Model of lexical access.