We investigate pi and eta decays of light baryon resonances within a chiral
quark model whose hyperfine interaction is based on Goldstone-boson exchan
ge. For the decay mechanism a modified version of the P-3(0) model is emplo
yed. We compare the predictions for pi and eta decay widths with experiment
and also with results from a traditional one-gluon-exchange constituent qu
ark model. The differences between nonrelativistic and semirelativistic ver
sions of the constituent quark models are outlined.