Linguistics
It's fascinating to watch linguistic development. It's tempting to think that M just parrots back our words without full understanding, but I think that happens a lot less often than I sometimes realize. As he's forming more and more sentences, for instance, it's clear that he understands sentence structure, including direct and indirect objects :
He's been experimenting with pronouns. The use of "My" above was incorrect--he should have used "I", but it was close. He's used "me" for several months, but is just starting to get "you." If he wants me to play baseball, for instance, he'll say "Me and Me play baseball," pointing at Daddy for the first "me" and pointing at himself for the second "me." He still refers to himself as his name (and not me, myself, or I) about 80% of the time.
I've wondered how much he parrots back songs, but two bits of evidence suggest that he gets the meaning. First, he'll point at the letters of the alphabet as he goes through them in the ABC song (although he isn't technically accurate about which letter is which). The second bit of evidence appeared yesterday when we were driving home from church. At home and at church we sing the cleanup song:
M started singing it from the backseat of the car, but he sings "Cleanup, Cleanup, Allbodies, Allbodies..."
Maybe this is not interesting to anybody but me, but to him, the pronoun "allbodies" makes more sense than "everybody," or at least that's how he's remembering the song. Which means that he's remembering the meaning of the song, and not just a series of meaningless words.
Which is more than I can say for myself when I sing along with that song "Blinded by the light..wrapped up like a...what in the middle of the night??"
"My give B. booberry." (B. is not old enough to eat a blueberry, btw.)
He's been experimenting with pronouns. The use of "My" above was incorrect--he should have used "I", but it was close. He's used "me" for several months, but is just starting to get "you." If he wants me to play baseball, for instance, he'll say "Me and Me play baseball," pointing at Daddy for the first "me" and pointing at himself for the second "me." He still refers to himself as his name (and not me, myself, or I) about 80% of the time.
I've wondered how much he parrots back songs, but two bits of evidence suggest that he gets the meaning. First, he'll point at the letters of the alphabet as he goes through them in the ABC song (although he isn't technically accurate about which letter is which). The second bit of evidence appeared yesterday when we were driving home from church. At home and at church we sing the cleanup song:
Cleanup, Cleanup,
Everybody, Everywhere;
Cleanup, Cleanup,
Everybody
do your share.
M started singing it from the backseat of the car, but he sings "Cleanup, Cleanup, Allbodies, Allbodies..."
Maybe this is not interesting to anybody but me, but to him, the pronoun "allbodies" makes more sense than "everybody," or at least that's how he's remembering the song. Which means that he's remembering the meaning of the song, and not just a series of meaningless words.
Which is more than I can say for myself when I sing along with that song "Blinded by the light..wrapped up like a...what in the middle of the night??"
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