Why do children say "breaked"?

Current Directions in Psychological Science

Volumn 5, Issue 3, 1996, Pages 81-85

  Marcus, Gary F ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0030305190     PISSN: 09637214     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1467-8721.ep10772799     Document Type: Article

References (19)

1. D. Rumelhart and J. McClelland, On learning the past tenses of English verbs: Implicit rules or parallel distributed processing? in Parallel Distributed Processing: Explorations in the Microstructure of Cognition, J. McClelland, D. Rumelhart, and the PDP research group, Eds., (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1986); for a more recent model, see K. Plunkett and V. Marchman, From rote learning to system building: Acquiring verb morphology in children and connectionist nets, Cognition, 48, 21-69 (1993).
2. D. Rumelhart and J. McClelland, On learning the past tenses of English verbs: Implicit rules or parallel distributed processing? in Parallel Distributed Processing: Explorations in the Microstructure of Cognition, J. McClelland, D. Rumelhart, and the PDP research group, Eds., (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1986); for a more recent model, see K. Plunkett and V. Marchman, From rote learning to system building: Acquiring verb morphology in children and connectionist nets, Cognition, 48, 21-69 (1993).
3. S. Pinker and A. Prince, On language and connectionism: Analysis of a Parallel Distributed Processing model of language acquisition, Cognition, 28, 73-193 (1988).
4. J. Berko, The child's learning of English morphology, Word, 14, 150-177 (1958); J.J. Kim, G.F. Marcus, S. Pinker, M. Hollander, and M. Coppola, Sensitivity of children's inflection to grammatical structure, Journal of Child Language, 21, 173-209 (1994); S. Pinker, Rules of language, Science, 253, 530-555 (1991).
5. J. Berko, The child's learning of English morphology, Word, 14, 150-177 (1958); J.J. Kim, G.F. Marcus, S. Pinker, M. Hollander, and M. Coppola, Sensitivity of children's inflection to grammatical structure, Journal of Child Language, 21, 173-209 (1994); S. Pinker, Rules of language, Science, 253, 530-555 (1991).
6. J. Berko, The child's learning of English morphology, Word, 14, 150-177 (1958); J.J. Kim, G.F. Marcus, S. Pinker, M. Hollander, and M. Coppola, Sensitivity of children's inflection to grammatical structure, Journal of Child Language, 21, 173-209 (1994); S. Pinker, Rules of language, Science, 253, 530-555 (1991).
7. B. MacWhinney and C. Snow, The Child Language Data Exchange System, Journal of Child Language, 12, 271-296 (1985).
8. G.F. Marcus, S. Pinker, M. Ullman, M. Hollander, T.J. Rosen, and F. Xu, Overregularization in language acquisition, Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 57(4, Serial No. 228) (1992).
9. Lexical correlations could be tested for only 19 children because for the remainder we lacked individual databases or found no overregularizations in our samples.
10. S. Prasada and S. Pinker, Similarity-based and rule-based generalizations in inflectional morphology, Language and Cognitive Processes, 8, 1-56 (1993).
11. Plunkett and Marchman, note 1, p. 55.
12. G.F. Marcus, U. Brinkmann, H. Clahsen, R. Wiese, and S. Pinker, German inflection: The exception that proves the rule, Cognitive Psychology, 29, 189-256 (1995).
13. The model of Plunkett and Marchman (note 1) displays a similar, abrupt external change, in which the onset of overregularization coincides with a sudden shift in training regime from a slow pace that allows the network to learn each irregular verb individually to a rapid pace that forces the network to generalize. See G.F. Marcus, The acquisition of inflection in children and multilayered connectionist networks, Cognition, 56, 271-279 (1995).
14. Using novel sampling techniques from biostatistics, my colleagues and I (Marcus et al., note 5, chap. V) have shown that this finding is not an artifact of a cumulative vocabulary measure that necessarily decelerates over time.
15. G.F. Marcus, Children's overregularization of English plurals: A quantitative analysis, Journal of Child Language, 22, 447-459 (1995).
16. The only systematic study of how input frequency affects network generalization is a series of simulations conducted by Plunkett and Marchman (note 1). In this study, when the initial proportion of regular vocabulary was less than 50%, their simulation failed to generalize the regular pattern to "novel indeterminate stems" (i.e., novel words).
17. S. Bartke, G.F. Marcus, and H. Clahsen, Acquiring German noun plurals, in Proceedings of the 19th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, D. MacLaughlin and S. McEwen, Eds. (Cascadilla Press, Boston, 1995).
18. F.C. Keil, Concepts, Kinds, and Cognitive Development (Bradford Books, Cambridge, MA, 1989); G.F. Marcus, Children's overregularization and its implications for cognition, in Models of Language Acquisition: Inductive and Deductive Approaches, P. Broeder and J.M.J. Murre, Eds. (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1996).
19. F.C. Keil, Concepts, Kinds, and Cognitive Development (Bradford Books, Cambridge, MA, 1989); G.F. Marcus, Children's overregularization and its implications for cognition, in Models of Language Acquisition: Inductive and Deductive Approaches, P. Broeder and J.M.J. Murre, Eds. (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1996).