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Tagging after red herrings: evidence against the processing capacity explanation in child language*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Peyton Todd
Peyton Todd
Affiliation:
The University of Chicago
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Abstract

A case is reported of failure to supply negation in tag questions for a period of nearly two years. The duration of this error shows that it could not have been the result of limited processing capacity, and this provides reason to doubt this explanation for the similar case of children's failure to invert subject and auxiliary verb in wh-questions. It is argued that other cases which have been explained in terms of limited processing capacity are equally compatible with an explanation in terms of context-specific knowledge, which holds that a rule is simply not known for contexts other than those where it is expressed.

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Type
Articles
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Journal of Child Language , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , February 1982 , pp. 99 - 114
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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