Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

One example of linguistic productivity that has been much discussed in the developmental literature is the verb inflection system of English. Opinion is divided on the issue of whether regular^rregular distinctions in surface behavior must be attributed to an underlying distinction in the mechanisms of production. Looking at the course of historical development in English, the current paper evaluates potential shortcomings of two competing approaches. T w o sets of simulations are presented. The first argues that a single-mechanism model offers a natural account of historical facts that would be problematic for a dual mechanism approach. The second addresses a potential problem for a single-mechanism account, the question of default behavior, and demonstrates that even in the absence of superior type frequency a network is capable of developing a "default" category. W e conclude that the single network account offers a more promising mechanism for explaining English verb inflection.'