Combinations on Hand

Even in exploring past findings, a fundamental truth that we have been exploring throughout our study of linguistics became clear in this week’s reading: There is no real “right” way to use a specific word or phrase. There is simply a learned way to use one- specifically, there is a conventional way to use certain words and phrases, based off of what we have learned from the people around us. Small children who fail to use the suffix “-er” are failing likely because they have not yet learned to pick up the proper patterns.

We use these tools to fill gaps in our vocabulary. Children rely on certain principles of acquisition, like semantic transparency, using a single device with one meaning, and relying on adults and frequency to set convention and establish which rules they will internalize and prioritize. As I mentioned above, it is clear that when experimenter prompted children with phrases like “someone who burns things is a … “ older children tended to use the expected phrase more readily (would answer with “stopper” or “burner”). (Table 3 also shows this.)

This week’s readings brought my mind back to “Ghana English,” and the funky mix of Twi and English I speak with my parents and siblings at home, and even with Ghanaian students on campus. This week’s readings really explored some important patterns of human speech, including the fact that we sometimes want to convey things that we don’t yet have vocabulary for. In order to fill those gaps, we use certain tactics, like compounding words, or using special phonemes like “-er” to get a word that we know transformed into something we really want to convey.

My vocabulary in Twi is quite limited. Because of this, I make up words in Twi all of the time, using the limited set of words that I know, and the basic patterns that I have picked up on how verbs, nouns and adjectives sound. In speaking in broken Twi, or “Ghana English,” I’ll often laugh at some of the phrases and words I or fellow interlocutors come up with. Clark's paper made it pretty clear to me that this creation is actually quite natural. Until we learn the conventional words for filing gaps, we are left instead to fill in meaning and communicate with the tools that we have on hand, or at least on mind and tongue.