Number Inflected Forms In Brazilian Portuguese: Access And Lexical Representation

This article investigates the processing of number inflected words in Brazilian Portuguese (BP), and it suggests a model of representation for them. It was observed how number inflected words are stored in the mental lexicon and retrieved from it. Recent studies have pointed out that the frequency of the base affects the processing of word inflected both in gender and in number (DOMINGUEZ; CUETOS; SEGUI, 1999). Regarding gender inflection in BP, a frequency effect was observed (CORREA; ALMEIDA; PORTO, 2004). In order to provide evidences concerning the dominant frequency of forms inflected in number, an experiment was carried out, which consisted of a word reading test, formed by words with regular number inflection. It was intended to observe if the singular form was accessed in the whole, taking into account dominant frequency effects, or if the regular plural form was accessed by decomposition, taking into account non-dominant frequency effects, excepting the cases of high frequency of plural forms, in which this forms would also be accessed in the whole, in a double-route model. The results suggest that the frequency dominant words are processed faster than the ones with non-dominant frequency.