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The input ambiguity hypothesis and case blindness: an account of cross-linguistic and intra-linguistic differences in case errors

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 March 2010

SABRA D. PELHAM
SABRA D. PELHAM*
Affiliation:
University of Florida
*
[*]Address for correspondence: e-mail: spelham@ufl.edu
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Abstract

English-acquiring children frequently make pronoun case errors, while German-acquiring children rarely do. Nonetheless, German-acquiring children frequently make article case errors. It is proposed that when child-directed speech contains a high percentage of case-ambiguous forms, case errors are common in child language; when percentages are low, case errors are rare. Input to English and German children was analyzed for percentage of case-ambiguous personal pronouns on adult tiers of corpora from 24 English-acquiring and 24 German-acquiring children. Also analyzed for German was the percentage of case-ambiguous articles. Case-ambiguous pronouns averaged 63·3% in English, compared with 7·6% in German. The percentage of case-ambiguous articles in German was 77·0%. These percentages align with the children's errors reported in the literature. It appears children may be sensitive to levels of ambiguity such that low ambiguity may aid error-free acquisition, while high ambiguity may blind children to case distinctions, resulting in errors.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , March 2011 , pp. 235 - 272
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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