JOURNAL OF VERBAL LEARNING AND VERBAL BEHAVIORI7, 61-71 (1978) Derivational Rules and the Internal Le,Kicon

hypothesis whereby complex nouns such as GOVERNANCE and GOVERNMENT are generated by rules for combining stems and affixes separately stored in the internal lexicon, and an Independent Unit hypothesis whereby GOVERN and GOVERNMENT constitute independent lexical units which are read out directly from lexical store. To test'these hypotheses subjects were presented auditorily with verbs (e.g., DECIDE) and had to produce a related noun (DECISION) as fast as possible. Reaction times and errors were related to derivational complexity, thereby supporting the Derivational rather than the Independent Unit hypothesis. A model of lexical retrieval processes incorporating derivational processes is proposed. Psychologists have long been interested in than in phonetic form, thereby economizing on derivational processes for retrieving infor storage, but economic arguments favoring DH mation from memory (Bartlett, 1932; Miller, have always seemed implausible since DH 1962; Bernstein, 1967) although documenting complicates mechanisms for learning, per these processes has proved difficult. For ceiving, and producing words. For example, example, no consensus has been achieved on DH requires a complex perceptual system for the nature of derivational processes for retriev distinguishing between. truly derived word