  \pi and \eta decay modes of light baryon resonances are investigated within a
chiral quark model whose hyperfine interaction is based on Goldstone-boson
exchange. For the decay mechanism a modified version of the 3P0 model is
employed. Our primary aim is to provide a further test of the recently proposed
Goldstone-boson-exchange constituent quark model. We compare the predictions
for \pi and \eta decay widths with experiment and also with results from a
traditional one-gluon-exchange constituent quark model. The differences between
nonrelativistic and semirelativistic versions of the constituent quark models
are outlined. We also discuss the sensitivity of the results on the
parametrization of the meson wave function entering the 3P0 model.
