Re: CHAT: Parallelism

Boudewijn Rempt wrote:
> I still wager however, that
> cows once learnt is stored as cows, not as cow-s... Which is at
> the root of the development of new suppletive paradigms.
Hmmm, maybe.  I doubt we'll be able to decide for sure anytime soon.
That may actually explain why children sometimes learn the correct
irregular plural, and then lose it when they figure out the -s rule, and
then regain it - perhaps in that interim period they're using *only* the
rules to figure out words, which would be logical if the objective is to
figure out if the rule is correct, and then later regains access to
individual stems.  Also would explain forms like "felled", a
transitional period in which both the rules are being used directly, and
the stored forms.

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