Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Research Background
1.2 Regular and Irregular Forms in English
1.3 Research Questions and Significance
1.4 Organization of the Dissertation
Chapter 2 The Theoretical Framework
2.1 The Single-Mechanism Approach
2.2 The Dual-Mechanism Approach
2.3 Diagnostic Devices
Chapter 3 Literature Review
3.1 Child First Language Acquisition
3.2 Adult First Language
3.3 First Language Disorders
3.4 Second Language Acquisition
Chapter 4 The Past Tense Production Task
4.1 Method
4.2 Results
4.3 Discussion
Chapter 5 The Visual Lexical Decision Task
5.1 Method
5.2 Results
5.3 Discussion
Chapter 6 The Masked Priming Task
6.1 Method
6.2 Results
6.3 Discussion
Chapter 7 General Discussion
7.1 Frequency Effects
7.2 Phonological Similarity Effects
7.3 The Role of Regularity
7.4 The Role of Learners' Factors
7.5 Advantages of the Dual-mechanism Models
7.6 Problems with the Current Models
Chapter 8 Concluding Remarks
8.1 Major Findings
8.2 Implications
8.3 Limitations
8.4 Final Words
Appendix 1 The Proficiency Test
Appendix 2 The Real Verbs in the Production Task
Appendix 3 The Familiarity Rating Task in the Production Task
Appendix 4 The Target Real Verbs in the Production Task
Appendix 5 The Real Verbs in the Visual Lexical Decision Task
Appendix 6 The Familiarity Rating Task in the Visual Lexical Decision Task
Appendix 7 The Target Real Verbs in the Visual Lexical Decision Task
References
Index