Re: L1 learning question

Nik Taylor wrote:

> When children learn a language like Spanish, which has multiple verb
> paradigms, do they ever confuse the paradigms?  For example, do young
> children sometimes produce forms like *habli', much as English-speaking
> children sometimes say things like *speaked?  I realize that's not quite
> the same, since that's a matter of irregular vs. regular (and the
> contrast between the correct hable' and the incorrect habli' is
> predictable based on verb class), but it's a related issue.  Also, if
> they do, are -er and -ir endings more often confused than those and -ar,
> since the -er and -ir have fewer differences, so are children more
> likely to produce a form *podimos than *hablimos?
In terms of language acquisition, it is perfectly normal for children to
introduce regularity into their speech, at some point.  Generally (and
this will be a useful oversimplification, but a simplification nonetheless),
children enter into the world with very little if any capacity to speak.
Now, of course, they are very probably hard-wired to be *able* to
speak, but at very early stages of development, they do not have the
muscular dexterity to manipulate the organs of speech properly.  Once
they have progressed beyond one and two word phrasal sentences, they
generally burst into full-blown normal sentences.  For morphology, they
only subtly begin to learn this, quite a bit after they learn to manage
certain properties of syntax, but the thing is that once they do learn
a morphological function, their tendency is to generalize that to the
greatest extent possible.  Before this point, they would use every form
they know as a seperate lexical entity, so when the rule comes along
that past tense (e.g.) is formed with a dental suffix, they think (quite
logically so) that all verbs form past tense in this way.  Only later do they
reacquire, so to speak, the irregular forms they had been previously
using.  So, that having been said, any irregularity will naturally be
eliminated for a time until the child learns otherwise.  This is of course
a generalization, but it's a very useful guide to understanding the
complexities of the situation.


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Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
ICQ#: 4315704   AIM: Deuterotom
Website: <http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/>
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."

We look at [the Tao], and do not see it;
  Its name is the Invisible.
                 - Lao Tsu, _Tao Te Ching_

Nature is wont to hide herself.
                 - Herakleitos
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