英语不规则形态习得的认知机理研究

Cognitive Mechanism of the Acquisition of English Irregular Forms

英语不规则形态包括三类:动词的过去式或过去分词的不规则变化,名词复数的不规则变化和形容词比较级和最高级的不规则变化。本文阐释英语不规则形态习得的两种不同的认知解释理论:单机制理论与词汇—规则理论。同时基于Jean Berko-G leason等语言学家对儿童语言习得中处理不规则形态产生"泛化现象"的研究,利用修正过的实验模式对中国大学生英语不规则形态习得情况进行试验,试图验证英语的不规则形态呈现规则化变化的趋势。

Modern English has three major grammatical categories of irregular forms,namely,（a） past-tense or past-participle of verbs,（b） plurals of nouns,and（c） comparatives and superlatives of adjectives or adverbs.This paper mainly illustrates the two hotly debated theories for the acquisition mechanism of English regular and irregular past-tense verbs： the Single Mechanism Storage Theory（SMST） by Rumelhart and McClelland,and Word-and-Rules Theory（WRT） by Steven Pinker.Based upon Jean Berko-Gleason＇s studies of overgeneralization in children＇s language acquisition,this paper studies Chinese adult EFL learners＇ acquisition of irregulars through revised Wug experiment modes,with an attempt to verify the ultimate regularization tendency of English irregulars.