%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