Most German Speakers Ignore the Cue That Best Predicts Plural Class
Kate McCurdy, Timothy J O’Donnell, Adam Lopez, Sharon Goldwater · 2025
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Description
McCurdy and three colleagues test whether German speakers use the best clue when they form plurals in twenty twenty-five. In German, a noun's gender is the single best predictor of which plural form it takes. Scholars tend to assume speakers use such strong clues when they speak. Past tests with made up nouns gave mixed results on this point.
Across three experiments, speakers formed plurals for new nouns with set genders. Most of them paid no heed to gender at all. That held even when the setup nudged them to attend to it. The authors say science must also explain the clues speakers leave unused. The work recasts how we model word learning.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Kate McCurdy, Timothy J O’Donnell, Adam Lopez, Sharon Goldwater |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2025 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 74 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |