This study investigates the way in which phonological change during derivation influences the access of complex words in the on-line performance of English-speaking subjects during word recognition. Three visual lexical decision experiments were administered (cross-modal priming, visual priming and simple). Overall, the results showed that the forms which were subject to phonological change during derivation were always recognized significantly slower than those without phonological alterations. The results confirm the role of phonological change in accessing derived words. They also have important implications for a theory of lexical representation.
Copyright 1999 Academic Press.