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Monday, March 24, 2008

No Like It

Chase has started speaking in sentences. Of course. these sentences are 3 words and sound as if he someone learning english as a second language. I suppose that is not too far from the truth.
According to Wikipedia the definition of a simple sentence is not so simple: In traditional English grammar, a predicate is one of the two main parts of a sentence (the other being the subject, which the predicate modifies). The predicate must contain a verb, and the verb requires, permits or precludes other sentence elements to complete the predicate. With that, "No like it" is a sentence so I commend my son for this, but it did start me wondering. If they are learning language from listening to us talk, and we talk with almost correct grammer almost all of the time, how in his little brain does he formulate No like it? And, if that is the simplest way to get the point across, why is it the english language has complicated things by enforcing verb conjugation?
Chase happens to be a good speaker for his age. Most of what he says is clear and we usually understand whatever point he is trying to get across. When you think about it, it is not the child learning a second language, but the parent. They know exactly what they are saying and we are trying to figure it out. No like it, that is pretty simple, but when Chase is chanting "seeeek" with delight, it takes some thinking he wants to play hide and seek. Or when Ryder shouts with pointed finger "bun" you wonder if perhaps he is talking about a kind of bread, or perhaps a toosie, before you learn he just wants to get his hands on some buttons.
Yes, it is us learning the second language, and I am sure there is no wikepedia definition for their grammar.

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