abstractThis paper discusses the traceback method, which has been the basis of some influential papers on first language acquisition. The method sets out to demonstrate that many or even all utterances in a test corpus (usually the last two sessions of recording) can be accounted for with the help of recurrent fixed strings (like What’s that?) or frame-and-slot patterns (like [What’s X?]) that can also be identified in the remaining dataset (i.e., the previous sessions of recording). This is taken as evidence that language learning is much more item-based than previously assumed. In the present paper we sketch the development of the method over the last two decades, and discuss its relation to usage-based theory, as well as the cognitive plausibility of its components, and we highlight both its potential and its limitations.

中文翻译：

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儿童语言习得研究中的追溯方法：识别早期言语中的模式

摘要本文讨论了追溯法，该法已成为一些有影响力的第一语言习得论文的基础。该方法旨在证明测试语料库中的许多甚至所有话语（通常是记录的最后两个会话）都可以在经常性固定字符串的帮助下进行解释（例如那是什么？) 或框架和槽模式（如 [什么是X?]），也可以在剩余的数据集中（即以前的记录会话）中识别。这被视为语言学习比以前假设的更多基于项目的证据。在本文中，我们概述了该方法在过去二十年中的发展，并讨论了它与基于使用的理论的关系，以及其组成部分的认知合理性，并强调了它的潜力和局限性。