Naming Morphologically Complex Pseudowords: A headstart for the root?

Several studies on Italian show that morphemes are effective processing units in reading aloud: faster naming times and greater accuracy were found in reading root + suffix pseudowords, as compared to matched pseudowords not including morphemes. A major role for the first morphemic constituent when compared to the second constituent, due to both perceptual and linguistic factors, is suggested. In the first two experiments, faster naming times were found not only on root + suffix pseudowords, but also on pseudowords including one root morpheme, plus no suffix, both in a list including mostly words, and in a list including pseudowords only. Root + non-suffix pseudowords were as fast as pseudowords fully parsable in morphemes (root + suffix), indicating that a headstart to a morphemic route is given by the root. In Experiment 3, a suffix effect on naming latencies, but not as strong as the root effect, was found. Morpheme-based reading aloud is discussed with reference to a morphologically decomposed lexicon, in which both roots and suffixes are stored and activated in cascade during reading.