Abstract
This article deals with the acquisition of the German plural system. It raises the question how morphologically complex words are represented in the mental grammar and in the lexicon of children and how this representation emerges.
There are several theoretical accounts dealing with this question. These accounts are basically of two kinds. One approach models the German number system as rule-based; i.e. source-oriented rules are postulated that operate on the singular form of the noun. The second approach is schema-based. Essential to this approach is the idea that speakers form the plural of a given noun according to prototypical plural shapes. Empirical evidence can be found for both approaches, but neither of them seems to be able to fully explain acquisitional paths on its own.
On the basis of the analysis of acquisitional data, this article argues for an expanded schema account that embraces both source- and product-oriented mechanisms. We propose an acquisition model according to which learners start out with storing plural forms holistically in an associative network; then they abstract product-oriented schemas from these stored forms that focus on the typical gestalts of German plural forms. In a last step, they establish source-oriented schemas that relate singular schemas with plural schemas.
The data for this study were gathered in a nonce word elicitation experiment from children aged 6 to 10 learning German either as their native or second language. In the latter case, the children’s L1 was either Russian or Turkish.
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Notes
IP rules might also be regarded as not being source-oriented when a rule such as N[pl] → N[sg] + -e is read as “the plural form consists of the singular form plus -e”. Still, even under this interpretation of the rule, the plural is analyzed as a singular form that has been changed in certain ways.
The definition of -s as default-plural is based on the claim that -s is used without restrictions with nouns of every gender, mono- or bisyllabic roots, roots ending in a consonant or a vowel, nominalized conjunctions, eponyms and product names, and with nominalized verb phrases (Clahsen 1999:995). However, it has been shown that -s is not used as a default, but, on the contrary, only in specific contexts (for nouns ending in an unstressed full vowel or pragmatically marked nouns like proper names, and those named above), which holds for all the other plural markers as well (cf. Stemberger 1999; Laaha et al. 2006:278).
The question which of the plural schemas in German represents the prototype will also be answered in Sect. 2.2 where an analysis of the frequency of nouns instantiating a specific plural schema in the children’s productive lexicon is presented.
In the following data analyses, we focus on the endings and leave the Umlaut aside.
We focus on schemas for the nominative only.
Pregel’s and Rickheit’s corpus of monolingual German speaking children is based on word production from the age of 6 to 10 years.
This unit comprises all plurals ending in a schwa syllable plus -n: -en, -ern, -eln.
As a matter of fact, -el is not a plural marker in German, but, since this ending occurs frequently in plural contexts, we assume that children designate a plural schema to nouns with that shape.
-ø here stands for a monosyllabic noun without a specific ending.
Those nouns follow the weak declension schema. As Köpcke (2000) shows, those masculine nouns that do not dispose of all the characteristics of prototypical weak inflecting masculine nouns (schwa ending, trochaic structure, animate) tend to change the declension class.
Prior to our data analyses, we have spelled out these hypotheses in terms of more specific statistically verifiable hypotheses. The results of the statistical analysis are listed in the Appendix.
Most of the participants were born in Germany and visited kindergarten. In a questionnaire most of the children specified that Turkish or Russian is the dominant language spoken at home. We thus concluded that the age of onset of acquisition must have been around three to four.
The items were mostly taken from Köpcke (1993). To assure that no homogenous associations with existing German, Turkish or Russian nouns would be evoked, the items were previously tested for the associations they evoke with a group of students with German, Russian, or Turkish as first languages, respectively.
In cases where the sum of the plural markers does not make 100 %, this is due to other forms the participants produced (e.g. Trunti etc.). We will concentrate in our analysis on the plural suffixes and not consider the use of Umlaut.
For items ending in a full vowel, the answers for non-feminine and feminine items were not analyzed separately, since they do not behave differently in the target language.
When a paired Wilcoxon test was run separately for the different participant groups, its outcome was significant for only some of them, presumably due to small group sizes. The detailed results are given in the Appendix.
The fact that the participants did not add the marker -(e)n to a word form already ending in -en can be explained by the desire to avoid double marking. But, if they had wanted to mark the plural overtly, they still could have chosen -s which would have preserved the trochaic structure of the noun. The fact that they did not add -s but left the stimulus item unchanged speaks in favor of our hypothesis.
Even for adult speakers of German, this distribution has been demonstrated in earlier studies (Köpcke 1993).
When a paired Wilcoxon test was run separately for the different participant groups, it came out significant for only some of them. The detailed results are given in the Appendix.
When a paired Wilcoxon test was run separately for the different participant groups, it came out significant for the participant group R 3–4 (p = 0.002) and marginally significant for the group T 1–2 (p = 0.076).
When a paired Wilcoxon test was run separately for the different participant groups, it came out significant for the participant group R 3–4 (p = 0.003) and marginally significant for the group R 1–2 (p = 0.093).
Only the results of the participant group G 3–4 do not fit this interpretation. Apparently, this group did not differentiate between feminine and non-feminine nouns, which would also explain the high number of (ungrammatical) zero-markings for these feminine nouns.
As can be seen in Table 6, there are slight differences between participants with L1 Turkish and Russian. The participant group T 3–4 uses -er clearly more often than the participants with L1 Russian or German (the results of the statistical analysis for this difference are given in the Appendix). This can be interpreted as an influence from the L1: In Turkish, plurals are formed by suffixing -ler or -lar to the stem. The German plural -er is thus the form that shows the highest similarity to a Turkish plural, at least in written language. It is thus possible that this triggers the preference of this plural form by participants with L1 Turkish.
When a paired Wilcoxon test was run separately for the different participant groups, its outcome was significant for only some of them, presumably due to small group sizes. The detailed results are given in the Appendix.
This difference was significant for the Russian participant group for the items ending in -el (\(\chi^{2} (1) = 6.149\), p = 0.013) and marginally so for the items ending in -er (\(\chi^{2} (1) = 3.229\), p = 0.072). For the Turkish participant group this difference was marginally significant for the items ending in -er (\(\chi^{2} (1) = 3.677\), p = 0.055) but not significant for the items ending in -el (\(\chi^{2} (1) = 2.348\), p = 0.125).
This difference was only significant for the Russian participant group for monosyllabic items (W = 69, p = 0.018) and not significant for the other groups and items.
The younger L2-learners do not dispose of the same abstract schemas yet as their lexicon encompasses fewer nouns and is structured differently. This is why the product-oriented strategy is not as dominant as in the older L2-learners.
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Acknowledgement
Many thanks for supportive help and criticism go to Klaus Panther, Linda Thornburg, Christine Dimroth, Sarah Schimke, and the anonymous reviewers.
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Appendix
Appendix
In what follows, we give an overview of the statistical hypotheses that were established in order to operationalize our general hypotheses.
Statistical hypotheses testing the product-oriented approach
- H(a)::
-
-ø will be used for non-feminine items ending in -el, -er or -en to an increasing amount.
Confirmed when the answers of all participants are aggregated:
-
-el < -en: W = 9, p<0.001
-
-er < -en: W = 1438, p<0.001
-
-el < -er: W = 263, p = 0.018
Within the participant groups, the results were significant only for some experimental groups:
Use of -ø for items ending in -el, -er, -en | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Friedman | -el < -en | -er < -en | -el < -er | |
G 1–2 | 0.03 | 0.093 | 0.102 | 0.471 |
G 3–4 | 0.029 | 0.087 | 0.171 | 0.762 |
T 1–2 | 0.204 | 0.384 | 0.564 | 1 |
T 3–4 | <0.001 | 0.003 | 0.015 | 0.882 |
R 1–2 | 0.01 | 0.021 | 0.039 | 0.87 |
R 3–4 | <.001 | <.001 | <.001 | 0.183 |
- H(b)::
-
-ø will be used in increasing number for items of all genders ending in -ø (monosyllabic), unstressed full vowel (-v), or -e.
Confirmed when the answers of all participants are aggregated:
-
-e > -v: W = 759, p = 0.011
-
-v > -ø: W = 407.5, p = 0.027
-
-e > -ø: W = 856.5, p<0.001
Within the participant groups, the results were significant only for some of the experimental groups:
Use of -ø for monosyllabic items, items ending in -e and -v | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Friedman | -v < -e | -ø < -v | -ø < -e | |
G 1–2 | 0.926 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
G 3–4 | 0.108 | 1 | 0.186 | 0.171 |
T 1–2 | 0.385 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
T 3–4 | 0.002 | 0.012 | 0.543 | 0.006 |
R 1–2 | 0.042 | 1 | 0.075 | 0.162 |
R 3–4 | <0.001 | 0.009 | 0.354 | <0.001 |
- H(c)::
-
-ø will be used for feminine items ending in -el or -er in increasing number.
Confirmed when the answers of all participants are aggregated:
-
W = 639, p = 0.007
Within the participant groups, the results were significant only for some of the experimental groups:
Use of -ø for feminine items ending in -el and -er | |
|---|---|
G 1–2 | 0.251 |
G 3–4 | 0.746 |
T 1–2 | 0.38 |
T 3–4 | 0.89 |
R 1–2 | 0.093 |
R 3–4 | 0.003 |
Statistical hypotheses testing the source-oriented approach:
- H(d)::
-
-ø will be used more frequently for non-feminine items ending in -el or -er than for feminine items ending in -el or -er.
Confirmed when the answers of all participants are aggregated:
-
W = 939.5, p<0.001
Within the participant groups, the results were significant only for some of the experimental groups:
Use of -ø for feminine items ending in -el and -er and non-feminine items ending in -el and -er | |
|---|---|
G 1–2 | 0.129 |
G 3–4 | 0.103 |
T 1–2 | 0.076 |
T 3–4 | 0.805 |
R 1–2 | 0.129 |
R 3–4 | 0.002 |
- H(e)::
-
-en will be used more frequently for feminine monosyllabic items than for non-feminine monosyllabic items.
Confirmed when the answers of all participants are aggregated:
-
W = 960, p<0.001
Within the participant groups, the results were significant only for some of the experimental groups:
Use of -en for non-feminine < feminine | |
|---|---|
G 1–2 | 0.047 |
G 3–4 | 0.057 |
T 1–2 | 0.246 |
T 3–4 | 0.332 |
R 1–2 | 0.816 |
R 3–4 | <0.001 |
Statistical hypotheses testing the influence of age:
- H(f)::
-
The older L2-learner groups will use -ø less frequently for non-feminine items ending in -el or -er than the younger L2-learner groups.
Partly confirmed:
Use of -ø for non-feminine items in -el or -er | ||
|---|---|---|
R 1–2 > R 3–4 | T 1–2 > T 3–4 | |
-el | \(\chi^{2} (1) = 6.149\), p = 0.013 | \(\chi^{2} (1) = 2.348\), p = 0.125 |
-er | \(\chi^{2} (1) = 3.229\), p = 0.072 | \(\chi^{2} (1) = 3.677\), p = 0.055 |
- H(g)::
-
The older L1-learner groups will use -ø more frequently for non-feminine items ending in -el or -er than the younger L1-learner groups.
Partly confirmed:
Use of -ø for non-feminine items in -el or -er | |
|---|---|
G 1–2 < G 3–4 | |
-el | \(\chi^{2} (1) = 4.659\), p = 0.031 |
-er | \(\chi^{2} (1) = 2.800\), p = 0.094 |
- H(h)::
-
The older L2-learner groups will use -en more frequently for monosyllabic items and items ending in an unstressed full vowel than the younger L2-learner groups.
Partly confirmed:
Use of -en for monosyllabic items and items ending in an unstressed vowel (-v) | ||
|---|---|---|
T 1–2 < T 3–4 | R 1–2 < R 3–4 | |
-ø | p = 0.342 | p = 0.018 |
-v | p = 0.654 | p = 0.206 |
- H(i)::
-
The older L1-learner groups will use -en less frequently for monosyllabic items and items ending in an unstressed full vowel than the younger L1-learner groups.
Not confirmed:
Use of -en for monosyllabic items and items ending in an unstressed full vowel (-v) | |
|---|---|
G 1–2 > G 3–4 | |
-ø | p = 0.278 |
-v | p = 0.160 |
Statistical hypothesis testing the influence of L1
- H(j)::
-
The older L2-learners with L1 Turkish will use -er more frequently for monosyllabic non-feminine nouns than learners of the same age with L1 Russian or German.
Partly confirmed:
Use of -er for monosyllabic non-feminine items | |
|---|---|
G 3–4 vs. R 3–4 | p = 0.063 |
R 3–4 vs. T 3–4 | p = 0.008 |
G 3–4 vs. T 3–4 | P = 0.408 |
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Köpcke, KM., Wecker, V. Source- and product-oriented strategies in L2 acquisition of plural marking in German. Morphology 27, 77–103 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11525-016-9292-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11525-016-9292-5