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The voicing contrast is neutralized syllable and word finally in Dutch and German, leading to alternations within the morphological paradigm (e.g., Dutch ‘bed(s)’, be[t]-be[d]en, German ‘dog(s)’, Hun[t]-Hun[d]e). Despite structural similarity, language-specific morphological, phonological and lexical properties impact on the distribution of this alternation in the two languages. Previous acquisition research has focused on one language only, predominantly focusing on children’s production accuracy, concluding that alternations are not acquired until late in the acquisition process in either language. This paper adapts a perceptual method to investigate how voicing alternations are represented in the mental lexicon of Dutch and German 3-year-olds. Sensitivity to mispronunciations of voicing word-medially in plural forms was measured using a visual fixation procedure. Dutch children exhibited evidence of overgeneralizing the voicing alternation, whereas German children consistently preferred the correct pronunciation to mispronunciations. Results indicate that the acquisition of voicing alternations is influenced by language-specific factors beyond the alternation itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interference Frisian (IF) is a variety of Frisian, spoken by mostly younger speakers, which is heavily influenced by Dutch. IF exhibits all six logically possible word orders in a cluster of three verbs. This phenomenon has been researched by Koeneman and Postma (2006), who argue for a parameter theory, which leaves frequency differences between various orders unexplained. Rejecting Koeneman and Postma’s parameter theory, but accepting their conclusion that Dutch (and Frisian) data are input for the grammar of IF, we will argue that the word order preferences of speakers of IF are determined by frequency and similarity. More specifically, three-verb clusters in IF are sensitive to: their linear left-to-right similarity to two-verb clusters and three-verb clusters in Frisian and in Dutch; the (estimated) frequency of two- and three-verb clusters in Frisian and Dutch. The model will be shown to work best if Dutch and Frisian, and two- and three-verb clusters, have equal impact factors. If different impact factors are taken, the model’s predictions do not change substantially, testifying to its robustness. This analysis is in line with recent ideas that the sequential nature of human speech is more important to syntactic processes than commonly assumed, and that less burden need be put on the hierarchical dimension of syntactic structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]