ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the cognitive mechanisms responsible for locating words in memory and delivering them to the behavioral systems that use them. It focuses on theories of lexicalization and speech production, human functions that undoubtedly involve virtually all the mechanisms underlying human language capacity. The major variables that influence accessibility of name-words are frequency, uncertainty, age of acquisition, and repetition. Frequency, uncertainty, and acquisition age are permanent vectors of lexical long-term memory (LTM). Objects of sufficient salience have single-word names that are stored in the LTMs of virtually all mature and intact individuals in the language community and similarly applied. Virtually everyone has experienced tip-of-the-tongue difficulty for names, but so far no one with normal memory has reported experiencing it for property attributes or semantic information. If semantic priming accounted for the entire latency drop, then any task involving the semantic network should produce the drop in its full magnitude.
