On Rules and Exceptions: An Investigation of Inflectional Morphology.

Abstract

This thesis examines two theories of the acquisition and representation of inflection (e.g. English past tense formation), focusing on children's overregularization errors such as goed and wented. On the "rule" view, suggested by Pinker and Prince (1988), regular forms (e.g. walk-walked) are created by the on-line application of symbolic, default rule (added to form the past tense), while irregular forms are retrieved from an associative memory. The alternative "connectionist" view, suggested by Rumelhart and McClelland, is that systems of rules and exceptions could be represented by single uniform associative connectionist network which contains no rules. These two views are considered with respect to four systems of inflection: the formation of plural and past tense forms in English, and plural and participle forms in German.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jun 01, 1993
Accession Number
ADA342502

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  • Gary F. Marcus

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  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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