He's back! ("yes"/"no")

[Beverly Flanigan]

It's not common in all the L1 English acquisition literature I've read (and
I've read a lot).  But I had a grad student once named Cameron (now a
linguist at Illinois-Chicago) who did, and still does, this all the
time.  "Are you going to LSA?"  "I am."  "Have you read blah-blah?"  "I
have."  I don't know whether his Scots background led to this though; in
Pittsburgh, where he grew up, I rather doubt it.

Beverly Flanigan
Ohio University

At 02:11 PM 8/31/2006, you wrote:
>For a few months, at age 3, my little grandson did that; he would answer
>yes/no questions with "It is," "I don't," and the like.  As far as I'm
>aware, nobody else in his family, peer group, or community has the
>mannerism, and now that he's turning 4, it's disappeared from his
>speech.  Could it be a common feature in (ontogenic) language development?
>
>--Charlie
>_______________________________________________
>
>---- Original message ----
> >Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2006 17:04:42 +0100
> >From: Lynne Murphy <m.l.murphy at SUSSEX.AC.UK>
> >Subject: Re: He's back!
> >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> >
> >--On Thursday, August 31, 2006 11:46 am -0400 "Baker, John"
> ><JMB at STRADLEY.COM> wrote:
> >
> >> we see the claim that there are no words for "yes" or "no" in
> Irish.  Is this really true?
> >
> >
> >If it's like Scots Gaelic (which one presumes it is), then yes, it is
> true--and I don't think it's all that rare in the world's languages.  You
> answer a question by saying "it is" or "it isn't" or otherwise echoing
> the verb of the question.  Chinese does this as well, doesn't it?
> >
> >Lynne
>
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org