On the interaction of phonology and morphology in language acquisition and German and Dutch Broca’s Aphasia: the case of inflected verbs

Abstract

In the framework of optimality theory, the emergence of the unmarked is traced in accounts of German inflectional -t, found in the third person singular present tense, the plural imperative, & the past participle inter alia, in German child language (N = 3, ages 1:0-2:5, 1:1-2:0, & 1:2-2:2) & in the speech of German & Dutch Broca's aphasics (N = 6 & 12, respectively); the aphasic data is limited to past participle inflection, in which Dutch coincides with German except after a stem-final coronal stop, where German epenthesizes schwa before final -t & Dutch has a zero morph. Results show that the -t suffix emerges in acquisition when the markedness constraint on branching rhymes has been demoted below mora faithfulness; -t may supplant stem-final consonants at first & only presents difficulties after stem-final coronal stops due to high ranking of a constraint against schwa between identical segments. In agrammatic Broca's aphasia, however, the same pattern of emergence of the unmarked is attributed to a deranking of constraints.