Question

Children will say things that they have never heard before, such as "I goed outside to play." This production of unique sentences is best explained by ______.

a) Behaviorism
b) Nativism
c) Social learning theory
d) Overregularization

Answer 1

Overregularization explains a child's unique sentence production, such as "I goed outside to play," where they apply general grammatical rules to irregular words, indicating their grasp of grammar but ignorance of exceptions.

Step-by-step explanation:

When a child says things like "I goed outside to play," which they have never heard before, this production of unique sentences is best explained by d) Overregularization. This phenomenon occurs when children apply general grammatical rules, such as adding "-ed" to make past tense, to words that are irregular and hence do not follow the typical pattern.

For instance, the correct past tense of "go" is "went," but because children are still learning the exceptions to the rules, they might overapply the regular rule and say "goed." This reflects an understanding of grammatical rules, but a lack of knowledge about exceptions. Behaviorism, Nativism, and Social Learning Theory each offer perspectives on language acquisition, but overregularization specifically refers to the application of grammatical rules to exceptions, demonstrating the child's internalization of language structures.