Haskell Todd R, MacDonald Maryellen C, Seidenberg Mark S
University of Southern California, USA.
Cogn Psychol. 2003 Sep;47(2):119-63. doi: 10.1016/s0010-0285(03)00007-0.
In noun compounds in English, the modifying noun may be singular (mouse-eater) or an irregularly inflected plural (mice-eater), but regularly inflected plurals are dispreferred (*rats-eater). This phenomenon has been taken as strong evidence for dual-mechanism theories of lexical representations, which hold that regular (rule-governed) and irregular (exception) items are generated by qualitatively different and innately specified mechanisms. Using corpus analyses, behavioral studies, and computational modeling, we show that the rule-versus-exceptions approach makes a number of incorrect predictions. We propose a new account in which the acceptability of modifiers is determined by a constraint satisfaction process modulated by semantic, phonological, and other factors. The constraints are acquired by the child via general purpose learning algorithms, based on noun compounds and other constructions in the input. The account obviates the regular/irregular dichotomy while simultaneously providing a superior account of the data.
在英语名词复合词中，修饰性名词可以是单数形式（食鼠者）或不规则变化的复数形式（食鼠者），但规则变化的复数形式则不被青睐（*食鼠者）。这种现象被视为词汇表征双机制理论的有力证据，该理论认为规则（受规则支配）和不规则（例外）项目是由性质不同且先天指定的机制生成的。通过语料库分析、行为研究和计算建模，我们表明规则与例外的方法做出了一些错误的预测。我们提出了一种新的解释，其中修饰语的可接受性由受语义、语音和其他因素调节的约束满足过程决定。儿童通过基于输入中的名词复合词和其他结构的通用学习算法来获取这些约束。该解释消除了规则/不规则二分法，同时为数据提供了更优的解释。
