Influence of intra- and extralinguistic factors on the distribution of plural allomorphs in German

Abstract

The distribution of plural allomorphs in German was examined on the basis of three noun frequency lists and a sample of German children (N = 2,021), with 582 adults as a control group. For frequency lists, 75-96% of variance of the distribution was explained in categorical regressions by means of the following intralinguistic factors: number of syllables, (dichotomized) gender, application of the schwa deletion rule, and sound chains in the word final position (sounds and frequent suffixes). For children and adults, the same factors accounted for only 63-68% of the variance in the tasks with nonce words taken from the language test SETK 3-5. Consideration of sociolinguistic factors increased the explained variance to 77% for children. Statistically significant factors were length of contact to the German language in years and immigration background, with a marginally significant value for a membership in an association or a study group.

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