Linearity and morphological structure in derived words: evidence from category decision

The present article investigates the influences of word-internal category information and linearity on the processing of morphologically complex words. Three sets of Finnish derived nouns consisting of a noun, adjective or verb stem, and a suffix were submitted to two on-line category decision tasks, where the subjects had to decide whether the word was a noun or a verb respectively. Both experiments show a stem-suffix category mismatch effect manifesting itself in prolonged reaction time latencies. Thus, the results indicate that the order of presentation and the word-internal structural information are intimately tied together also in the visual processing of morphological complex words.