During the process of language activation, lemma retrieval is the first step in lexical access. In this step, meaning and the syntactic elements of a lexical item are realized as the lemma. Lemma retrieval, as explained through a spreading-activationtheory, is part of a network of separate elements consisting of the abstract concept, the lemma and the lexeme. Lemma retrieval is aided by the activation level of the concept that has yet to be verbalized. When activation takes place on the lemma level, the highest activated lemma element is selected. 

Lexical selection experiments have provided evidence that lemma retrieval is affected by the frequency of the word. This indicates that word frequency not only has an effect on the phonological elements of a word but also the semantic and syntactic elements that make of the lemma.

Experiments that have studied the Tip-of-the tongue (TOT) phenomenon have provided evidence that less strong connections of phonological elements (lexemes) and lexical and syntactic representation (lemmas) lead to inability to retrieve a lexical item. TOT utterances provide evidence that the lemmas and lexemes are separate processes in language activation.bold

I want to add more information about lemma's role in both language production and the effects on lemma access with aphasia and tip of the tongue phenomenon. In the final draft I will use the following sources to write two paragraphs on these topics as well as reword some of the existing entry. It is written in a very technical way and should be reworded for a more general audience.

Hofferberth-Sauer, N. J., & Abrams, L. (2014). Resolving tip-of-the-tongue states with syllable cues. In V. Torrens & L. Escobar (Eds.), The processing of lexicon and morphosyntax (pp. 43-68). Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

http://www.psych.ufl.edu/~abrams/documents/hofferberth-sauer_abrams_14.pdf

http://www.psych.ufl.edu/~abrams/documents/abrams_davis_16.pdf

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1582154

http://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5756&context=etd