Children and language

The Clark article focuses on how children acquire and create new words. It isn’t until around the ages of 5-7 that they truly begin to learn to coin agent and instrument nouns, however a basic understanding of it can be seen in even younger kids (ages 2-3). It isn’t until the age of 10 to 12 when they actually begin the master the ability. There are three main principles that drive a child’s ability to create words, the first being the principle of transparency which states that when you create a meaningful word by matching up known elements, it is more transparent and easier to construct and interpret new words. For example, if we have the words pain and killer, the meaning of painkiller is more transparent than the meaning of analgesic. The second is the principle of productivity, word-formation devices that adults use are likely the most effective and productive devices, so children should add those devices to their repertoire of knowledge before others. The third is the principle of conventionality which states that “for certain meanings, there is a conventional word or word-formation device that should be used in the language community”. These three principles are what aid children in the production of new words.

Clark’s paper revolved around words ending in –er and how children perceived said words. Children were able to come up with accurate meanings for words like stopper and burner by noticing the important verb phrase of the word, they were able to express their understanding of the functions of the verb bases, and lastly, the study showed that they were able to understand the agentive meaning or –er better than the instrumental meaning.

One thing I kept thinking of while I read this paper why is it that there isn’t necessarily a pattern in how English words are created. For example, a fireman is someone who fights fire. This seemingly makes sense, but if we use the same reasoning in other situations, the outcome just becomes wrong. If someone fights in a battle against an enemy, shouldn’t they be considered an enemyman (someone who fights the enemy)? What caused the fireman to be called a fireman, or a soldier not to be called an enemyman? There are so many examples of similarities in the English language and there doesn’t seem to be any pattern behind them that I can notice.