Abstract The reason which is generally given in the usage-based literature to account for the retention of irregularity in high frequency items during analogical change is entrenchment: a frequently occurring irregular linguistic unit resists analogical levelling because it is highly entrenched in speakers’ mental lexicons through its repeated use. Although previous research similarly suggests that the entrenchment of irregular and regularised forms competing during analogical levelling should be proportional to their frequency of use, evidence for this relation between frequency and entrenchment comes exclusively from corpus-based studies; what is missing, therefore, are behavioural tests contrasting the competing innovative and conservative forms. The present paper aims to provide converging evidence for an entrenchment-based explanation of frequency patterns in analogical change on the basis of data obtained from an experiment in which participants are presented with traditional and analogical variants of a variable currently undergoing analogical levelling. Differences in processing latencies obtained during the experiment are interpreted as differences in entrenchment. The results provide i) evidence in favour of the prevalent entrenchment-based explanation of the conserving effect of frequency in analogical change, and ii) evidence of the current state and spread of the change under investigation.

中文翻译：

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在类比水平中处理竞争形式的潜伏期，以证明频率对正在进行的语言变更中的根深蒂固的影响

摘要在基于用法的文献中通常会给出解释类比变化期间高频项不规则性保留的原因是根深蒂固：频繁出现的不规则语言单元抵制类比水平，因为它通过以下方式在说话者的心理词典中高度根深蒂固它的重复使用。尽管以前的研究类似地提出，在类比水平测验中，不规则和正则形式竞争的入应该与其使用频率成正比，但频率和入之间这种关系的证据仅来自基于语料的研究；因此，缺少的是行为测试，将竞争性创新和保守形式进行了对比。本文旨在为基于类比变化的频率模式的基于根深蒂固的解释提供汇聚的证据，该数据基于从实验中获得的数据，在实验中为参与者提供了当前正在经历类比水准的变量的传统和类比变体。实验期间获得的处理延迟的差异被解释为入的差异。结果提供了：i）支持基于普遍的基于根深蒂固的解释，即对频率在类比变化中的保持作用的解释；以及ii）所调查变化的当前状态和扩散的证据。