Frequency determines defaults in German: Default perfect -t versus irregular plural -s
Joseph Paul Stemberger · Behavioral and Brain Sciences · 1999
The German facts are consistent with the hypothesis that the default is the most frequent allomorph. Plural -s is the least frequent allomorph and does not act as a default. There is another way to measure the frequency of perfects in which no single -n allomorph is as frequent as -t. Lexical versus computational components do not correlate with regularity.