Dutch plural inflection: the exception that proves the analogy.
We develop the view that inflection is driven partly by non-phonological analogy and that non-phonological information is of particular importance to the inflection of non-canonical roots, which in the view of [Marcus, G. F., Brinkmann, U., Clahsen, H., Wiese, R., & Pinker, S. (1995). German inflection: the exception that proves the rule. Cognitive Psychology, 29, 189-256.] are inflected by a symbolic rule process. We used the Dutch plural to evaluate these claims. An analysis of corpus data shows that a model using non-phonological information (orthography) produces significantly fewer errors on plurals of non-canonical Dutch nouns, in particular borrowings, than a model that includes only phonological information. Moreover, we show that a double default system, as proposed by Pinker [Pinker, S. (1999). Words and rules. London: Phoenix.], does not offer an advantage over the latter model. A second study, examining the use of orthography in an online plural production task, shows that, in Dutch, the chosen pseudoword plural is significantly affected by non-phonological information. A final simulation study confirms that these results are in line with a model of inflectional morphology that explains the inflection of non-canonical roots by non-phonological analogy instead of by a default rule process.
Keuleers
Emmanuel
E
Center for Psycholinguistics, University of Antwerp, Belgium. emmanuel.keuleers@ua.ac.be
Sandra
Dominiek
D
Daelemans
Walter
W
Gillis
Steven
S
Durieux
Gert
G
Martens
Evelyn
E
D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008037:Linguistics / Q000379:methods; D014825:Vocabulary