Frequency effects in noun phrase production: Implications for models of lexical access

We investigated the processes of lexical retrieval during the production of adjectival noun phrases (NPs) such as ‘‘the blue kite’’. We used various current assumptions about the scope of grammatical and phonological encoding and about the locus of the classic frequency effect to derive predictions about possible frequency effects in the NP naming task. The predictions were tested in two picture-naming experiments where we manipulated orthogonally the frequencies of the adjective and of the noun that composed the NPs. We consistently found frequency effects for both adjectives and nouns. Moreover the effects were additive. We argue that the existence of a frequency effect for the noun during noun phrase production restricts the various combinations of assumptions that speech production models can hold simultaneously. Possible implications of the additivity of the effects for the time course of lexical access are also discussed.