Pizzas, pizzen, pizze: frequency, iconicity, cue validity, and productivity in the plural acquisition of German preschoolers

Abstract

Some factors which influence the choice of plural markers in German are discussed: frequency of nouns and plural allomorphs, iconicity, cue validity, productivity, and gender specific distribution of plural allomorphs. The evidence comes from studies on a language screening conducted in the state of Hesse in Germany in 2007-2010 with three-, four-, and five-year-old monolingual and multilingual children.