%0 Journal Article %A Hoekstra, Eric %A Merkuur, Anne %A Sloos, Marjoleine %A Weijer, Jeroen van de %T Calculating a pattern’s competitive strength: Competition between /æ/ and /ʌ/ in irregular simple pasts and past participles in English %D 2018 %J The Mental Lexicon %V 13 %N 1 %P 143-157 %@ 1871-1340 %R https://doi.org/10.1075/ml.17019.hoe %K token frequency %K type frequency %K log scaling %K competition %K English irregular verbs %I John Benjamins %X This article proposes a measure of the competitive strength of two rival patterns in the domain of a subgroup of irregular verbs in English. There is competition between simple pasts built on the vowels /æ/ and /ʌ/, and the same competition is found in the domain of past participles. As a result of such competition, the past tense stang (from sting) was replaced with stung. The /ʌ/ forms are more competitive than the /æ/ forms ( Bybee & Slobin 2007 , Bybee & Moder 2007 ). To understand this, we counted the number of types for /æ/ (such as sang, rang) and /ʌ/ (such as stung, stuck) in the irregular simple past and did the same in the irregular participle (such as sat, had and sung, done). We calculated a measure of competitiveness for these two patterns incorporating type frequency and token frequency. This measure was used to explain why /ʌ/ forms are more competitive than /æ/ forms. %U https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/ml.17019.hoe