Memes and vocab!

This reading reminds me of a meme I’ve seen pop up on social media. The meme usually follows the format “You: […}, Me, an intellectual: […].” Favorites so far have been:

You: Yikes

Me, an intellectual: Yicycles

You: chill out dude it was only a joke
Me, an intellectual: refrigerate it my brother for it was only a jest

Anyway, I decided to come up with a version applicable to the reading:

You: to drop

Me, an intellectual: to fall something

I thought this would be funny if “me” were from the perspective of a child. “To drop” is of course the conventional form, but a child who is an “intellectual” would create a version they think is innovative – “to fall something.” It doesn’t sound natural, but it isn’t wrong.

Anyway, I’ve recently become interested in the field of speech pathology, and have been curious about studying language acquisition in children. This reading was a delight. Clark’s study reveals how children fill gaps in their vocabulary when they haven’t yet learned a conventional form. Clark suggests that children rely on certain principles to do so: semantic transparency, productivity, and conventionality. Clark uses these principles to explain the acquisition of the word-formation device –er. Semantic transparency explains why it’s normal for children to use compounding of the words “break” and “man” to create “breakman” instead of “breaker.” Productivity explains how children who identifty –er first in agent nouns will use it first to create new agent nouns. Later, they will extend –er to include instrumental meaning (e.g. typewriter). Lastly, conventional words are naturally given priority over other forms. Conventionality also governs use of word formation devices.