{"id":640,"date":"2023-01-31T23:54:30","date_gmt":"2023-02-01T07:54:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/linguamonium.com\/?p=640"},"modified":"2023-02-01T10:01:21","modified_gmt":"2023-02-01T18:01:21","slug":"the-box-breaked-the-eraser-sinked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/linguamonium.com\/?p=640","title":{"rendered":"The box breaked, the eraser sinked"},"content":{"rendered":"

Have you ever experienced something from the written page come to life? I have. No, I didn\u2019t see the purple dragon from my teen fantasy novels, or communicate with an unfolded-refolded nine-dimensional sophon from Trisolaris<\/a> (hey\u2026it\u2019s been forever since my last post, I\u2019m way overdue for a bit of nerding out).<\/p>\n

No \u2013 I\u2019m talking about something much more on-topic for this blog. A decade ago, I had read research on young children\u2019s acquisition of verbs\u2026of the learning phases they go through, particularly with respect to past tense forms. This last year, I\u2019ve witnessed that phenomenon in real time with my toddler son. It has been incredible to observe his (now veritable flood of) daily speech, while having some idea of what\u2019s happening behind the cerebral scenes.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been keeping a journal of my son Ryden\u2019s language development (and his language environment in terms of parental input) since his preverbal days \u2013 starting when he was about 4 months old. Mining that journal for examples relevant to the subject at hand, I found the below:<\/p>\n

(Age is represented by the formatting convention <\/em>years;months, e.g. 2;5 means \u201c2 years and 5 months\u201d<\/em>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Age<\/strong><\/td>\nDate<\/strong><\/td>\nExample<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2;4<\/td>\n2\/16\/2022<\/td>\n\u201cI see it. We see it. I saw <\/em>it.\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2;5<\/td>\n3\/2\/2022<\/td>\n\u201cI falled <\/em>and slipped\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2;6<\/td>\n4\/9\/2022<\/td>\n\u201cI went <\/em>under the water\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2;9<\/td>\n7\/2\/2022<\/td>\n\u201cWe ate<\/em> the food all\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2;9<\/td>\n7\/5\/2022<\/td>\n(Ryden said) \u201cfell<\/em>\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3;0<\/td>\n10\/6\/2022<\/td>\n\u201cIt falled<\/em>\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3;1<\/td>\n11\/14\/2022<\/td>\n\u201cI hid<\/em> daddy all\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3;1<\/td>\n11\/22\/2022<\/td>\n\u201cI drank<\/em> my milk\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3;2<\/td>\n12\/2\/2022<\/td>\n\u201cThe milk was rumbling, and it went <\/em>down\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3;2<\/td>\n12\/15\/2022<\/td>\n“I tried to drink daddy’s tea and it went <\/em>all over my shirt”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3;3<\/td>\n1\/10\/2023<\/td>\n\u201cThe box breaked<\/em>!\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3;3<\/td>\n1\/25\/2023<\/td>\nRyden: \u201cIt sinked<\/em>. The eraser sinked<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

Me: \u201cIt sunk?\u201d<\/p>\n

Ryden: \u201cYeah, it sunk<\/em>\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

I\u2019ve italicized all of the past tense verb forms. Spot the errors?<\/p>\n

There are actually only three unique errors (four instances): falled<\/em> in \u201cI falled\u201d; breaked <\/em>in \u201cthe box breaked\u201d; and sinked <\/em>in \u201cthe eraser sinked\u201d. Correct usage is more frequent: saw<\/em>, went<\/em>, ate<\/em>, hid<\/em>, drank<\/em>.<\/p>\n

What exactly is happening here?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The verbs above share a common trait \u2013 they\u2019re all irregular verbs<\/strong>. Most verbs in English are regular<\/strong>, which, in part, means they have an affixation rule<\/strong>, \u201cadd the suffix -ed <\/em>to form the past tense\u201d. Irregular verbs don\u2019t take this same past tense \u00ad-ed <\/em>ending; instead, they take more idiosyncratic forms involving stem changes, which must be memorized individually (e.g. find <\/em>\u2192<\/em> found<\/em>; take <\/em>\u2192<\/em> took<\/em>; hold <\/em>\u2192<\/em> held<\/em>).<\/p>\n

English-speaking children start marking verbs for past tense between the ages of late-one and three. Initially, they produce some correct irregular past tense forms. Then, they go through a period (between ages 2-5) where they make overregularization errors<\/strong>. As they grow older, the mistakes diminish, and kids conjugate irregulars correctly again.<\/p>\n

Overregularization<\/a><\/strong> is a phenomenon that covers a range of linguistic\/grammatical errors. For the case here, a child applies the regular past -ed <\/em>suffix to irregular verbs, resulting in incorrect past tense forms (e.g. find <\/em>\u2192<\/em> finded<\/em>; take <\/em>\u2192<\/em> taked<\/em>; hold <\/em>\u2192<\/em> holded<\/em>).<\/p>\n

These errors are an indication that the child is generalizing beyond adult talk, and that they\u2019ve acquired a past-tense type of rule. Their brain has unconsciously caught on to the fact that verbs have two alternate forms (jump <\/em>and jumped<\/em>), and subsequently wants to apply it to all verbs, whether regular or irregular. [1]<\/a><\/p>\n

This process \u2013 where toddlers first use some accurate forms, then overgeneralize, then use the accurate forms again \u2013 is called \u201cU-shaped development\u201d <\/strong>in child psychology.<\/p>\n

A few more details on this phenomenon:[2]<\/a><\/p>\n