Entrenchment in first language learning

In this chapter, we have considered the evidence for the processes of entrenchment and abstraction in language acquisition with respect to the development of grammatical representations. We could summarize thus: Children first learn high-frequency items or collocations from the input; they then notice similarities between the early-learned items in terms of their forms and functions; where there is overlap in form and function coupled with variation, this leads to the abstraction of linguistic constructions around fixed anchors which themselves gradually become more abstract; along the way, some of these abstractions turn out to be wrong and lead to errors, but in the end repeated exposure to adult-like input reinforces only the acceptable, grammatical representations, driving out the rest.