The ubiquity of frequency effects in first language acquisition

Abstract

This review article presents evidence for the claim that frequency effects are pervasive in children's first language acquisition, and hence constitute a phenomenon that any successful account must explain. The article is organized around four key domains of research: children's acquisition of single words, inflectional morphology, simple syntactic constructions, and more advanced constructions. In presenting this evidence, we develop five theses. (i) There exist different types of frequency effect, from effects at the level of concrete lexical strings to effects at the level of abstract cues to thematic-role assignment, as well as effects of both token and type, and absolute and relative, frequency. High-frequency forms are (ii) early acquired and (iii) prevent errors in contexts where they are the target, but also (iv) cause errors in contexts in which a competing lower-frequency form is the target. (v) Frequency effects interact with other factors (e.g. serial position, utterance length), and the patterning of these interactions is generally informative with regard to the nature of the learning mechanism. We conclude by arguing that any successful account of language acquisition, from whatever theoretical standpoint, must be frequency sensitive to the extent that it can explain the effects documented in this review, and outline some types of account that do and do not meet this criterion.

Individual Differences in Language Acquisition and Processing

“…The most-immediate environmental effect on language pertains to the frequency of language use, which affects both acquisition and adult language processing [52,53]. All things being equal, more-frequent words and structures are typically acquired earlier and are processed more easily (but there also appears to be a special facilitation for early acquired constructions [54]).…”

Danske børns tilegnelse af bøjningsmorfologi - udviklingen af substantivernes pluralisbøjning i alderen 0-10 år

“…Studier tyder på at både leksem-, type-og tokenfrekvens af de enkelte pluralismarkører og pluralisformer i det sproglige input til barnet har betydning. Studierne har vist at bøjnings-markører med en høj type-og tokenfrekvens i det sproglige input til barnet tilegnes tidligere end markører der kun har en høj tokenfrekvens (fx Ambridge et al 2015;Bybee 1995). Det er stadig uklart praecis hvor stor betydningen af frekvens er, og hvordan frekvensen spiller sammen med andre faktorer (fx Ambridge et al 2015;Gülzow & Gagarina 2011).…”

Experience counts: An introduction to frequency effects in language

“…Token frequency or repetition alone does not lead to generalization but to entrench ment (cf. Bybee 2006Bybee , 2010Ambridge et al 2015). Type frequency or variation, on the other hand, is needed to provide the basis for possible schema formation and generalization (Langacker 1987;Bybee 2006Bybee , 2010Ambridge et al 2015).…”

“…Bybee 2006Bybee , 2010Ambridge et al 2015). Type frequency or variation, on the other hand, is needed to provide the basis for possible schema formation and generalization (Langacker 1987;Bybee 2006Bybee , 2010Ambridge et al 2015). Last but not least we have to take into account that (c) frequency effects operate at different levels of representation, from small and concrete linguistic units like sounds1, morphemes2 or words3 to more abstract and larger units such as multi word phrases4, sentential constructions5 or even conversational structure6.…”

“…Coming back to our motto from Ambridge et al (2015), it has been dem onstrated in many finegrained empirical analyses that theories of language change, language learning, and language processing cannot ignore frequency effects. In our view, the time has come to start working on those topics that cross the boundaries of learning, processing and changing language, and to investigate whether similar processes are at work in these areas.…”