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From: stevemac@bud.indirect.com (Stefano MacGregor)
Subject: One point against Esperanto
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Date: Wed, 8 Mar 1995 06:17:31 GMT
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Lastatempe skribis duncan@lightning.eee.strath.ac.uk (Duncan THOMSON) jene:

>This is not true.  I cannot give you an example from the Dutch language,
>but one *always* hears young chilren (learning English as a mother tongue)
>saying things like "I goed to the shops" or "he readed that book".  The
>child may not be *explicitly* working with rules, but it is obvious that
>it is implicitly using them (in this case "english past tense formed by
>adding "-ed"). 

  Children, when learning a language, behave like perfect little
scientists, creating theories that explain the world around them in a
regular way, and then use these theories to guide them in their
interactions with the world.  When things don't work the way they expect,
they modify the theories.
  Sometimes you can get them to explain the theories, so that you get a 
glimse of their reasoning, which is often very interesting, even when 
it's wrong.  I remember my son's theory about why we had "pie" at our 
house, but never at Granny's.  (Granny is from Kentucky, you see.)  His 
theory:  pah is made out of pie!

-- 
 --        __0       Stefano MAC:GREGOR      Mi dankas al miaj bons`ancigaj
  --     -`\<,      (s-ro)   \ma-GREG-r\         steloj, ke mi ne estas
   --   (*)/ (*)   Fenikso, Arizono, Usono           superstic`ulo.
