More overregularizations after all: new data and discussion on Marcus, Pinker, Ullman, Hollander, Rosen & Xu.
Marcus, Pinker, Ullman, Hollander, Rosen & Xu (1992) claim that when the irregular past form of a verb is known, it is immediately known to be the correct form, such that over-regularizations only occur as speech errors, not as a genuine grammatical alternative; as a result, they argue, over-regularization rates are, when carefully inspected, very low. In the present paper: (1) it is shown that even if over-regularizations are a genuine grammatical alternative, overall rates in samples would still be low for most children; (2) careful analysis shows evidence for substantial over-regularization periods in three longitudinal subjects ages 2;5-5;2 (Abe), 2;3-5;2 (Adam) and 2;3-5;0 (Sarah); (3) Abe's much higher rates follow from general developments in his past tense acquisition, in ways not consonant with Marcus et al.'s formulations.
Maratsos
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M
University of Minnesota, USA.
D002648:Child; D002663:Child Language; D002675:Child, Preschool; D006801:Humans; D008037:Linguistics; D008137:Longitudinal Studies