The Impact of Sound Structure on Morphology: An Experimental Study on the Acquisition of German and Danish Noun Plurals Focusing on Stem Change

This study examines the impact of sound structure on children’s acquisition of
noun plural morphology, focussing on stem change. For this purpose, a threelevel
classification of stem change properties according to sound structure is
presented, with increasing opacity of the plural stem: no change, weak change,
strong change. General hypotheses are presented as well as predictions
following from them, both general and language-specific. The relevance of stem
change is tested in 140 German-speaking and 140 Danish-speaking children
from the age of three to nine years, by using a plural elicitation task. Results
show that in both languages, stem change has an impact on children’s correct
production of plural stems. Language-specific differences between German and
Danish both in correct responses and in overgeneralization errors are compared
to our predictions and discussed in detail.