On the acquisition of inflectional morphology: introduction

Abstract

delivering external or substantial evidence for theoretical problems of morphology, similarly to other linguistic domains, since Baudouin de Courtenay (1974, posthumously) and Jakobson (1941, 1977). In the last two decades this area has been dominated by controversies between dual-route and single-route models of the acquisition of inflection (cf. Clahsen 1999; Clark 2003, pp. 207–212; Dąbrowska 2008). Radical proponents of dual-route models (e.g. Pinker 1999; Pinker and Ullmann 2002) assume that any regular inflectional form is computed in the grammar by a single rule that productively combines a base with an affix (e.g. English regular weak past tense forms with the affix /d/). In order to produce a regular form for a given category, a language has just one affix (e.g. English gerundive –ing), as is typically the case in agglutinating languages, or it has one default operation (e.g. in the English past tense). All non-default forms, called irregulars, are stored and acquired like any other words of the lexicon. New irregular forms (e.g. E. brung for brought) are formed via analogy to stored forms (e.g. forms like sung). This has been a return to traditional views on regular vs. irregular inflection, whereas in earlier generative grammar there was a tripartition between major rules (regulars), minor rules (subregulars like sing, sang, sung) and truly irregular, stored forms (such as brought, went). This distinction between subregular and irregular morphology can easily explain why many English children produce forms like brung (by overgeneralising not only regular but also subregular patterns), but have never been recorded to overgeneralise truly irregular forms, e.g. by forming past participles *sought, *stought to sing, sting on analogy to bring, brought.