Are Plurals Derived or Stored?

The role that lexical storage and computation play in the processing ofmorphologically complex words is highly debated. Thus far, studies that contrastthese processes have yielded widely varying results. At present, three viewpointspredominate: (1) the full storage model, in which all known words are storedseparately in the mental lexicon, (2) the full parsing model, in which all complexforms are parsed into constituent morphemes, and (3) the dual-route model, inwhich some words are parsed while others are accessed as wholes.In two experiments utilizing a lexical decision task, the influence ofcumulative and individual frequency on Spanish noun plurals and singulars wastested. In each experiment, native Spanish speakers were asked to identify visuallypresented words and non-words. The first experiment involved discriminatingbetween plural nouns and plural non-words. The second experiment replicated thefirst except that singular forms were used. The results were compared to findings of previous studies of plurals in English,Dutch, Italian, and Spanish. Contrary to an earlier study of Spanish, The presentstudy supports a dual-route race model in which direct access wins the race forplurals. Reaction times to singulars, on the other hand, were influenced bycumulative frequency, indicating that both the singular and plural forms areactivated during recognition of singulars.