Abstract representations such as subsegmental phonological features play such a vital role in explanations of phonological processes that many assume that these representations play an equally prominent role in the learning process. This assumption is tested in three artificial grammar experiments involving a mini language with morpho-phonological…

A key question in language processing concerns the rule-like nature of many aspects of grammar. Much research on this topic has focused on English past tense morphology, which comprises a regular, rule-like pattern (e.g., bake-baked) and a set of irregular forms that defy a rule-based description (e.g., take-took). Previous studies have used past…

Although it is well-established that children with Specific Language Impairment characteristically optionally inflect forms that require tense and agreement marking, their abilities with regards to derivational suffixation are less well understood. In this paper we provide evidence from children with Grammatical-Specific Language Impairment…