Researchers compare three groups of immigrants who arrived in an English-speaking country at ages 4, 12, and 22. After 10 years of immersion, syntactic test scores are nearly native for the youngest group, intermediate for the middle group, and significantly lower for the oldest group, despite equal exposure. Vocabulary scores show no group differences.
A child in the youngest group says "I goed to the store." This overregularization error best illustrates:
- A
A semantic, not syntactic, deficit
- B
Failure of the LAD to develop
- Ccheck_circle
Application of internalized grammatical rules rather than rote imitation
- D
Telegraphic speech typical of one-year-olds
Explanation
Overregularization (adding -ed to irregular verbs) shows the child has extracted a productive rule rather than memorizing forms—evidence for rule-based grammar learning.