Learning Compound Order: Towards a Functional Explanation

This project investigates the problem of learning compound order, from an interdisciplinary perspective. Formal theories of linguistics have not addressed the question of why the constituents forming verbal compounds are ordered the way they are. Research in linguistic typology and language acquisition is critically examined, demonstrating the importance of the study of mental representation in explaining the development of morphological competence. Experimental results are reported showing that adults’ acceptability judgements of ill-formed compound patterns differ from children’s judgements in ways that emphasise the role of linguistic experience. It is argued that performance constraints, specifically learnability, can provide a functional explanation for compound order.