I thought it was interested that a previous article about Universal Grammar had stated that when adults try to override a child's grammar format, the child generally ignores it - which hints at the existence of a UG the child is obeying over what she is taught. However, this article did show the importance of what is taught, in that a well-established word in the language can "take precedence" over the child's innovation. Essentially, the child's desire to say 'typer' can be switched to 'typist' if 'typist' is well-established in the language. Nonetheless, a child format of speaking may be unable to be overridden, suggesting a UG's existence. This tension between convention learned by children and some sort of innate language ability in children seems to arise in many areas of linguistics.
It had never occurred to me that children naturally "coin non-existent verbs to express particular meanings by removing -er from nouns," such as a verb ham from hammer. It seems very logical to assume if -er can be added to many words that it can also be removed, and yet the verbs formed seem comical to adults.
Lastly, the concept of gender interested me. While most words have an -er added to become an agent, some words are a compound word including the -er, and the main purpose seems mainly to genderize the profession. For example, fisherman, and washerwoman seem like they could have equally reasonably become "fisher" and "washer" and yet the genderized form has become a large norm. This seems to reinforce gender notions around professions more than to clarify anything about the actual work of the profession as "fisher" and "washer" would be equally telling about the verb that is being done. The fact that man can be switched into and equated to -er is also interesting, and reminds me of how philosophy always used "man" but that has since been switched to using "they" or alternating "she" / "he" and other forms because it was realized that people do view man as a male rather than as a universally encompassing term. It seems like by turning agents from verbs using -er, we can eliminate a linguistic gender difference.
Interesting post, Anna. I enjoyed your stance on gender notions being demonstrated through verbs using -er. Your suggestion to turning agents from verbs using -er, could be plausible, but another suggestion I have that might be less challenging (since avoiding using -er in many cases is difficult), is to encourage the use of -er in both male and female contexts, perhaps even emphasizing it the case of female.
ReplyDeleteI never even noticed the use of "woman" in the example "washerwoman" - just another example of how these stereotypes have infiltrated so many aspects of society, I guess. It certainly is interesting how gender can play a role in the discussion of the -er affix; as a follow-up, do we have different expectations about what kind of word (-man or -woman) should be compounded with others to generate a new word? What could these observations show about social and linguistic stereotypes?
ReplyDeleteIt's also interesting to see how the ideas of a universal grammar and the -er affix can coexist; one implies the existence of some ingrained knowledge of grammar, while the other clearly details a transition from a simple, intuitive form to the conventional word used in spoken and written language. However, I don't necessarily agree with your idea that "a child format of speaking may be unable to be overwritten" - after all, I think that we consciously and unconsciously start using the -er suffix to emulate the speech of adults and our peers. Sticking to "contrived" forms (like words formed using compounding) might lead to negative social biases, as I brought up in my article. Overall though, I really enjoyed reading your blog and your diverse points!