Year: 2003
Type: article
Abstract: Cognitive models of language development have often been used to simulate the pattern of errors in children’s speech. One relatively infrequent error in English involves placing inflection to the right of a negative, rather than to the left. The pattern of negation errors in English is explained by Harris & Wexler (1996) in terms of very early knowledge of inflection on the part of the child. We present data from three children which demonstrates that although negation errors are rare, error types predicted not to occur by Harris & Wexler do occur, as well as error types that are predicted to occur. Data from MOSAIC, a model of language acquisition, is also presented. MOSAIC is able to simulate the pattern of negation errors in children’s speech. The phenomenon is modelled more accurately when a probabilistic learning algorithm is used.
Authors: Stephen J. Croker, Julián M. Pine, Fernand Gobet
Institution: University of Derby
Language: English
Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1938090463