Blything Ryan P, Ambridge Ben, Lieven Elena V M
School of Psychological Science, University of Bristol.
University of Liverpool, ESRC International Centre for Language and Communicative Development (LuCiD).
Cogn Sci. 2018 May;42 Suppl 2(Suppl Suppl 2):621-639. doi: 10.1111/cogs.12581. Epub 2018 Jan 12.
This study adjudicates between two opposing accounts of morphological productivity, using English past-tense as its test case. The single-route model (e.g., Bybee & Moder, ) posits that both regular and irregular past-tense forms are generated by analogy across stored exemplars in associative memory. In contrast, the dual-route model (e.g., Prasada & Pinker, ) posits that regular inflection requires use of a formal "add -ed" rule that does not require analogy across regular past-tense forms. Children (aged 3-4; 5-6; 6-7; 9-10) saw animations of an animal performing a novel action described with a novel verb (e.g., gezz; chake). Past-tense forms of novel verbs were elicited by prompting the child to describe what the animal "did yesterday." Collapsing across age group (since no interaction was observed), the likelihood of a verb being produced in regular past-tense form (e.g., gezzed; chaked) was positively associated with the verb's similarity to existing regular verbs, consistent with the single-route model only. Results indicate that children's acquisition of the English past-tense is best explained by a single-route analogical mechanism that does not incorporate a role for formal rules.
本研究以英语过去式为测试案例，对形态学上的两种对立观点进行了评判。单一路径模型（例如，比伯和莫德， ）假定，规则和不规则过去式形式都是通过联想记忆中存储的范例进行类推而生成的。相比之下，双路径模型（例如，普拉萨达和平克， ）假定，规则屈折变化需要使用正式的“加 -ed”规则，该规则不需要对规则过去式形式进行类推。儿童（年龄在3 - 4岁；5 - 6岁；6 - 7岁；9 - 10岁）观看了一只动物执行由一个新动词描述的新动作的动画（例如，gezz；chake）。通过促使儿童描述动物“昨天做了什么”来引出新动词的过去式形式。综合各年龄组来看（因为未观察到相互作用），一个动词以规则过去式形式（例如，gezzed；chaked）被产出的可能性与该动词与现有规则动词的相似性呈正相关，这仅与单一路径模型一致。结果表明，儿童对英语过去式的习得最好用一种不包含形式规则作用的单一路径类推机制来解释。
