Relationships Between Language Structure and Language Learning: The Suffixing Preference and Grammatical Categorization

TLDR

Universal properties of natural languages are assumed to arise from genetic code, language processing, or a combination of both. The study investigates the suffixing preference, the tendency for inflections to be added to the end of words, across world languages. The authors performed a corpus analysis of child‑directed speech in English to compare the accuracy of suffixes versus prefixes in signaling grammatical category. The analysis revealed that suffixes more accurately cue grammatical category than prefixes, and an artificial‑language experiment showed a learning advantage for suffixes over prefixes in grammatical categorization, supporting the view that language universals stem from general‑purpose learning mechanisms.

Abstract

Abstract It is a reasonable assumption that universal properties of natural languages are not accidental. They occur either because they are underwritten by genetic code, because they assist in language processing or language learning, or due to some combination of the two. In this paper we investigate one such language universal: the suffixing preference across the world’s languages, whereby inflections tend to be added to the end of words. A corpus analysis of child‐directed speech in English found that suffixes were more accurate at cuing the grammatical category of the root word than were prefixes. An artificial language experiment found that there was a learning advantage for suffixes over prefixes in terms of grammatical categorization within an artificial language. The results are consistent with an account of language universals that originate in general purpose learning mechanisms.