Words resembling each other are stored close together and they compete.

What is it about?

Words are stored closer together in the brain the more they resemble each other. Two words resembling each other compete and their frequencies determine who wins. In this way, words from two languages compete in the brain of a bilingual speaker. We show that in Frisian there are two nominalizing suffixes with the same function. One suffix is similar to its Dutch counterpart, the other has no Dutch counterpart. If the stem of a Frisian word closely resembles its Dutch counterpart, it will favor the suffix that has a Dutch counterpart. If a Frisian word does not have a closely resembling Dutch counterpart, the uniquely Frisian suffix has more probability of occurring.

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Why is it important?

It shows that analogy and frequency are key concepts for the organisation of language in the human mind. It calls into doubt the existence of an innate grammar component as in generative grammar. Instead, there may be an innate cognitive component. It supports the psycho-linguistic view of the organization of language in the mind, while using corpus data from traditional linguistics as evidence. So there is a convergence of results from two different disciplines, from psycho-linguistics and from our own discipline, bilingual corpus research on the basis of traditional linguistics.

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