Morphological and Evaluation Effect within Russian Syncretic Derivational Model

In the present study morphological and evaluation effect produced by visual presentation of morphologically complex words and pseudo-words was studied. In a lexical decision experiment Russian derivatives of a syncretic derivational type (combining nomination and evaluation in its motivational formula) were employed. The aim of the research was to reveal morphological effect in the derivatives of the syncretic model and to check the hypothesis about the semantic effect of evaluation being part of morphological processing. The results revealed a significant morphological effect in suffixed words and pseudo-words but questioned the hypothesis about the interaction of evaluation and morphological conditions in morphological processing.