Govor, Vol. 43 No. 1, 2026.
Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.22210/govor.2026.43.02
Morphological structure and lexical access: Word recognition in Croatian speakers with aphasia
Hrvoje Kovač
orcid.org/0009-0006-5556-4948
; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb
*
* Corresponding author.
Abstract
Morphological processing in word recognition (e.g., morphological analysis) may be activated at different stages, either prior to or following lexical access. Speakers of typologically diverse languages differ in the extent to which they rely on morphological structure in recognizing words. Previous research on Croatian—a synthetic, inflectional, and fusional language—has provided empirical evidence on morphological representation across inflection, derivation, and compounding. This study presents an experimental investigation of word recognition in Croatian speakers with different types of aphasia, whose impairments may provide insight into language processing mechanisms. Two research questions are addressed: (1) whether morphological decomposition and morpheme identification are activated prior to lexical access in Croatian, and (2) to what extent persons with aphasia rely on morphological structure during lexical decision, particularly those with comprehension deficits. The study employed a visual and an auditory lexical decision task, both using identical stimuli consisting of 29 attested Croatian words (e.g., stolovi ‘tables’) and 29 pseudowords (e.g., daskovi), formed by combining valid roots and suffixes in unattested ways. Tasks were administered using a penand-paper format, with response accuracy as the primary dependent variable. The sample included 11 participants with aphasia and 11 control participants. Results showed the highest error rates among participants with comprehension impairments, and significantly higher error rates for pseudowords in this subgroup. Interpreted within the dual-route framework, the findings suggest that morphological processing may precede lexical access in Croatian and plays a role in pseudoword processing in aphasia with comprehension deficits.
Keywords
morphology; lexical access; word recognition; aphasia
Hrčak ID:
348949
URI
Publication date:
7.7.2026.
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