Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Implicit vs. explicit learning in German noun plurals
AU - Kovic, Vanja
AU - Westermann, Gert
AU - Plunkett, Kim
PY - 2008
Y1 - 2008
N2 - Over the past few decades there has been a lot of debate, about language learning and the opinion about the status of mental rule during the process of language learning is still divided between different researches. The present study examines learning morphology of German noun plurals based on rules, examples or on both, rules and examples. The results across these three experimental conditions suggest that the morphological patterns are learned more easily in the form of rules and thus, seem to be more easily captured by dual-route (which suggest that rules and exceptions are processed by two qualitatively different mechanisms) than single route theories (which suggest a singe mechanism for processing both rules and exceptions). However, a closer examination of error patterns across the five rules (-e, -n, -er, circle divide, -s) revealed results confronting dual-route theories and suggest the existence of two rule-mechanisms (-n and -s) rather than one for learning regular inflection in German plural nouns. Moreover, the second rule (with plural ending -n) was the easiest one to be learned, although it is the fifth rule (with plural ending -s) which is considered as a default rule in German.
AB - Over the past few decades there has been a lot of debate, about language learning and the opinion about the status of mental rule during the process of language learning is still divided between different researches. The present study examines learning morphology of German noun plurals based on rules, examples or on both, rules and examples. The results across these three experimental conditions suggest that the morphological patterns are learned more easily in the form of rules and thus, seem to be more easily captured by dual-route (which suggest that rules and exceptions are processed by two qualitatively different mechanisms) than single route theories (which suggest a singe mechanism for processing both rules and exceptions). However, a closer examination of error patterns across the five rules (-e, -n, -er, circle divide, -s) revealed results confronting dual-route theories and suggest the existence of two rule-mechanisms (-n and -s) rather than one for learning regular inflection in German plural nouns. Moreover, the second rule (with plural ending -n) was the easiest one to be learned, although it is the fifth rule (with plural ending -s) which is considered as a default rule in German.
KW - German
KW - plural inflection
KW - learning
KW - dual-route theories
KW - connectionist theories
KW - ENGLISH PAST TENSE
KW - LANGUAGE-ACQUISITION
KW - MODEL
KW - INFLECTION
KW - RULES
U2 - 10.2298/PSI0804387K
DO - 10.2298/PSI0804387K
M3 - Journal article
VL - 41
SP - 387
EP - 411
JO - Psihologija
JF - Psihologija
SN - 0048-5705
IS - 4
ER -