Centre for Research in Linguistics and Language Sciences, Newcastle University, Newcastle Upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear, United Kingdom ; Brain and Language Lab, Department of Neuroscience, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2013 Sep 9;8(9):e74683. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0074683. eCollection 2013.
This study investigates the storage vs. composition of inflected forms in typically-developing children. Children aged 8-12 were tested on the production of regular and irregular past-tense forms. Storage (vs. composition) was examined by probing for past-tense frequency effects and imageability effects--both of which are diagnostic tests for storage--while controlling for a number of confounding factors. We also examined sex as a factor. Irregular inflected forms, which must depend on stored representations, always showed evidence of storage (frequency and/or imageability effects), not only across all children, but also separately in both sexes. In contrast, for regular forms, which could be either stored or composed, only girls showed evidence of storage. This pattern is similar to that found in previously-acquired adult data from the same task, with the notable exception that development affects which factors influence the storage of regulars in females: imageability plays a larger role in girls, and frequency in women. Overall, the results suggest that irregular inflected forms are always stored (in children and adults, and in both sexes), whereas regulars can be either composed or stored, with their storage a function of various item- and subject-level factors.
本研究调查了典型发展儿童中屈折形式的存储与构成。8-12 岁的儿童接受了规则和不规则过去式形式的生成测试。通过探测过去时频率效应和形象性效应来检查存储（与构成相比）——这两种都是存储的诊断测试——同时控制了许多混杂因素。我们还考察了性别的因素。不规则的屈折形式必须依赖于存储的表示，不仅在所有儿童中，而且在两性中都始终显示出存储的证据（频率和/或形象性效应）。相比之下，对于可以存储或构成的规则形式，只有女孩显示出存储的证据。这种模式与从相同任务中获得的先前获得的成人数据相似，唯一的区别是发展会影响哪些因素影响女性对规则的存储：形象性在女孩中起更大的作用，而在女性中则是频率。总体而言，研究结果表明不规则的屈折形式总是存储（在儿童和成人中，以及在两性中），而规则形式可以是构成的或存储的，其存储是各种项目和主体水平因素的函数。
