This article contributes to a debate in the linguistic and psychological
literature that centres around the representation of morphologically
complex words in the grammar and in the lexicon. The issue is whether
inflectional morphology is rule-based (i.e. symbolically represented),
or
whether the assumption of pattern association is more adequate to
account for the facts. On the basis of the analysis of acquisitional data
the
article strongly argues for the latter alternative. In a classic experiment
that helped shape the development of acquisition theory Berko (1958)
reported substantial support for item-and-process rules in the
acquisition
of plural morphology in English. A large part of her results
were zero responses (repetition of the stimulus). A reinterpretation of
these zero responses in light of schema theory and the cue strength
hypothesis shows a striking departure from randomness. Berko's subjects
tended to repeat stimuli just to the extent that these already
resembled a plural schema. A reinterpretation of data reported in Innes
(1974) achieved compatible results. This data set is far more extensive
than Berko's and is used in the present study to put the schema model
to a more stringent test. A reinterpretation of a parallel experiment with
German children, using the cue strength analysis of the more complex
plural morphology of German yielded parallel results. Finally, natural
acquisitional data obtained from seven German speaking children aged
between 2;1 and 2;9 are analysed. Again, strong support is found for the
schema model. It is suggested that a schema-learning mechanism may
underlie the acquisition of morphology, even when the end product of
the learning process involves item-and-process rules, as in the case of
English plural formation. In a schema-learning model, the child builds
schematic representations for possible singular and plural lexical items
as whole gestalts, and attempts to map concrete forms onto these
schemata in deciding whether the forms have singular or plural value.
Effects of incidental training and reinforcement on mixed schema learning