Event-related brain potentials were recorded as 18 German-speaking subjects read sentences that contained as critical words German nouns in correct and incorrect plural forms. Two types of plurals were investigated: regular -s plurals (e.g. Karussell-s 'roundabouts') and irregular -(e)n plurals (Muskel-n "muscles'). We compared correct regular and irregular plurals with incorrect ones; the latter had -(e)n on nouns that actually take -s plurals (*Karussell-en), or -s on nouns that require -(e)n (*Muskel-s). ERPs showed different responses to regular and irregular plurals: incorrect irregular plurals (*Muskel-s) elicited a ramp-shaped left frontotemporal negativity, whereas incorrect regulars (*Karussell-en) produced a central phasic negativity with a maximum at 380 ms. This dissociation supports the view that regularly inflected words are processed differently from irregularly inflected ones.
In this article, we study the representation of phrase structure in early child German through the investig,ation of extensive longitudinal data from 7 monolingual German-speaking children (ages 1;8 to 2;9) with respect to verb placement, verb inflection, negation, wh-pronouns, and complementizers. In our data, we find clear evidence that children's grammar at Stage I generates at least one functional projection-namely, IP, or rather F(inite)P. There is, however, no empirical support for a second functional projection (CP) in Stage I. We argue that children construct phrase-structure trees in a gradual fashion, on the basis of X-bar theory and the input they receive.
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