A Multivariate Analysis of Morphological Variation in Plural Inflection in North Sea Germanic Languages
نویسندگان
چکیده
The present study explores the variation in the plural inflection of eight varieties of Frisian and English, focusing on the irregular plural formations. The aim of the study is to identify and assess the significance of the factors which contributed to the preservation and emergence of irregular plural patterns in the investigated varieties. Multivariate regression analysis, which was employed to weigh the significance of individual factors, reveals that the retention and emergence of irregular plural patterns is determined by a combination of three major factors: relative frequency, absolute frequency and salience. The factors that emerge from our analysis as being statistically relevant can be reduced to underlying cognitive processes, including the storage and retrieval of linguistic information in the human brain.
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