<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">The pronoun gender confusion issue in English can probably be settled fairly quickly by looking at the CHILDES data base, but i want to offer a caveat: the nominative he/she pair can also be subject to phonological errors if the child hasn't yet learned to control the 'esh' sound.<div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>For what it's worth, English-speaking agrammatic aphasics, who usually have articulation problems, have he/she errors, but I don't know if there are documented gender errors on possessive (his/her) or accusative (him/her) forms; I suspect that the closeness in sound of the he/she pair makes them more vulnerable to error.</div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Lise Menn<br><div><br></div><div><br><div><div>On Jun 17, 2012, at 6:55 AM, <<a href="mailto:info-childes@googlegroups.com">info-childes@googlegroups.com</a>> <<a href="mailto:info-childes@googlegroups.com">info-childes@googlegroups.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold; color: #222222; padding: 0px">
<a name="digest_top" style="color: #222222">Today's Topic Summary</a></div><p>Group: <a style="color:15c;text-decoration:none" href="http://groups.google.com/group/info-childes/topics">http://groups.google.com/group/info-childes/topics</a></p>
<ul style="margin-left:3px; padding-left:0px">
<li type="square" style="color: #555555"><a style="color:15c;text-decoration:none" href="x-msg://22/#group_thread_0">pronoun errors in gender</a> [1 Update]</li>
<li type="square" style="color: #555555"><a style="color:15c;text-decoration:none" href="x-msg://22/#group_thread_1">pronoun errors of gender</a> [2 Updates]</li>
</ul>
<a name="group_thread_0"></a>
<div style="background-color: #f5f5f5; font-family: arial; border-top: 1px solid #e5e5e5; padding: 4px 0 5px 32px; "> <a target="_blank" href="http://groups.google.com/group/info-childes/t/e5b87a868833f3b7" style="color:15c;text-decoration:none">pronoun errors in gender</a></div>
<ul>
<span style="color: ; font-weight: bold">Denis Donovan <<a href="mailto:dmdonovan1937@gmail.com">dmdonovan1937@gmail.com</a>></span> Jun 16 07:45PM -0400
<br> <br>
Hi Laura,<br>
<br>
Just a few thoughts on the subject you have raised.<br>
<br>
One of the problems with posing categorical problems is that they may, or may not, present quite the same challenges to practical understanding in different language worlds. In English, we can certainly refer to a city such as Paris, as Alistair Horne did in his marvelous history, SEVEN AGES OF PARIS, as a woman. And it is standard to refer to ships as feminine. No one would ever say of the Titanic "He sunk."<br>
<br>
Whereas London, through the ages, has always betrayed clearly male orientations, and New York has a certain ambivalence, has any sensible person ever doubted that Paris is fundamentally a woman? It was thus that I first conceived this book--not as any arrogant attempt to write an all-embracing history of Paris, but rather as a series of linked biographical essays, depicting seven ages (capriciously selected at the whim of the author) in the long, exciting life of a sexy and beautiful, but also turbulent, troublesome and sometimes excessively violent woman (Horne :xiii).<br>
<br>
Horne, Alistaire (2004). Seven Ages of Paris. New York: Vintage.<br>
<br>
But languages that mark the gender of things other than people -- objects, places, concepts, etc. -- and those that typically do not present very different psychological or psycholinguistic challenges. You make this observation:<br>
<br>
In my clinical experiences, I have seen many children with autism who make errors in pronoun gender, and many kids with language disorders (as well as younger, typically developing kids) who make errors in pronoun case (e.g., “her have it”). I can’t say that I’ve ever seen a child make a pronoun gender error who did NOT have autism, but I’m having trouble finding anything in the literature to back up that blanket statement.<br>
<br>
I've attached a clinical example from a book that I'm finishing up that does not fit your pattern. The example is a good 15 years old, although it won't be published until the book is completed shortly. Notice that the issue is both linguistically and clinically complex. Yet it's a not uncommon case.<br>
<br>
Best,<br>
<br>
Denis<br>
<br>
Denis M. Donovan, M.D., M.Ed., F.A.P.S.<br>
Director, EOCT Institute<br>
<br>
Medical Director, 1983 - 2006<br>
The Children's Center for Developmental Psychiatry<br>
St. Petersburg, Florida<br>
<br>
P.O Box 47576<br>
St. Petersburg, FL 33743-7576<br>
Phone: 727-641-8905<br>
<a href="mailto:DenisDonovan@EOCT-Institute.org">DenisDonovan@EOCT-Institute.org</a><br>
<a href="mailto:dmdonovan1937@gmail.com">dmdonovan1937@gmail.com</a><br><div> <br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>
</ul>
<a name="group_thread_1"></a>
<div style="background-color: #f5f5f5; font-family: arial; border-top: 1px solid #e5e5e5; padding: 4px 0 5px 32px; "> <a target="_blank" href="http://groups.google.com/group/info-childes/t/25b5e418bffec8f7" style="color:15c;text-decoration:none">pronoun errors of gender</a></div>
<ul>
<span style="color: ; font-weight: bold">"Laura Snow" <<a href="mailto:lsnow@u.washington.edu">lsnow@u.washington.edu</a>></span> Jun 16 02:31PM -0700
<br> <br>
Dear all,<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
I'm trying to determine whether typically developing children ever make<br>
errors in pronoun gender (e.g., reverse "he" and "she"), and if so, <br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
1. at what point in their language development (and for how long) do<br>
these errors occur?<br>
<br>
2. are these errors consistent or intermittent during the time that they<br>
occur?<br>
<br>
3. Do the errors occur mainly in cases of long-distance reference or<br>
also with relatively simple utterances (e.g., pointing to a girl and saying,<br>
"He has it")<br>
<br>
In my clinical experiences, I have seen many children with autism who make<br>
errors in pronoun gender, and many kids with language disorders (as well as<br>
younger, typically developing kids) who make errors in pronoun case (e.g.,<br>
"her have it"). I can't say that I've ever seen a child make a pronoun<br>
gender error who did NOT have autism, but I'm having trouble finding<br>
anything in the literature to back up that blanket statement.<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
I'm mainly interested in finding formal studies of children learning<br>
English, but evidence that is anecdotal and/or from other languages would<br>
also be useful!<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Laura Snow, Ph.D., CCC-SLP<br>
<br>
University of Washington<br>
<br>
Center on Human Development and Disability<br>
<br>
Seattle, WA<br><div> <br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>
</ul>
<ul>
<span style="color: ; font-weight: bold">Aliyah MORGENSTERN <<a href="mailto:aliyah.morgenstern@gmail.com">aliyah.morgenstern@gmail.com</a>></span> Jun 17 12:31AM +0200
<br> <br>
Dear Laura,<br>
<br>
I can only report anecdotal errors in French data.<br>
We haven't made any specific study on this topic in our data of French typical children (the Paris corpus) but I do have anecdotical evidence of pronoun and determiner "errors" in gender. You might not consider it as being the same issue (in the case of determiner, mostly grammatical gender, in the case of pronouns referential or personal gender). I must say that grammatical gender errors in French exist and are quite impressive when we find them and also fun to analyze since the developmental pattern could be similar to past tense with irregular verbs in English ("la fleur" feminine flower instead of masculine, "un poule" - masculine chicken instead of feminine).<br>
<br>
As far as personal pronouns are concerned, we have noticed that children mostly produce non standard "proto-uses" of "proto-forms" when they are in the filler syllable stage with fillers closer to "il" instead of "elle" or the reverse... When the full pronoun stage is reached with no more fillers, there are still some odd gender reversals...<br>
Older children (3 or 4) get mixed up when they are trying to refer to two different characters or persons in the same speech turn: "elle la mange" (she eats her) speaking of the wolf eating the little girl, instead of "IL la mange" (he eats her) with the added complexity of subject and object and semantic roles of eater and "eatee"...<br>
<br>
As far as I know these errors are not consistent at all during the time that they occur. I think it is interesting to study whether and when they are repaired by adults.<br>
<br>
I'm sorry if this is really too vague...and of course since we only have spontaneous data, the occurrences will be really scarce, we could only make qualitative analyses. But I'm sure we have them. And actually, I myself continue to make that type of "error". I can remember a whole data session when I kept referring to the child as she when it was a he... Maybe under the influence of scientific papers on language acquisition. I'm sure I've heard adults get mixed up as well. I think there are a lot of different factors (cognitive overload, semantic complexity, number of referents, prototypical gender for certain roles or functions which influence certain automatisms...).<br>
<br>
As far as the psychotic and autistic children I have worked with are concerned, I have not filmed them, so can only speak from direct experience with no data, but the errors were much more systematic when they existed.<br>
<br>
I think you could compare this phenomenon to pronominal reversal (3rd or 2nd person instead of first person) in typical and autistic children. There is more literature on that, especially in English and it might inspire you, but you have probably already thought of it.<br>
<br>
Best,<br>
Aliyah <br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Aliyah Morgenstern<br>
Professor of Linguistics<br>
Sorbonne Nouvelle University<br>
<br>
<br>
Le 16 juin 2012 à 23:31, Laura Snow a écrit :<br>
<br><div> <br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>
</ul>
<div style="color:#555555; padding: 27px 0 0 40px"><p>
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Group info-childes.<br>
You can <a style="color:15c;text-decoration:none" href="mailto:info-childes@googlegroups.com">post via email</a>.<br>
To unsubscribe from this group, <a style="color:15c;text-decoration:none" href="mailto:info-childes+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com">send</a> an empty message.<br>
For more options, <a style="color:15c;text-decoration:none" href="http://groups.google.com/group/info-childes/topics">visit</a> this group.<br>
</p><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>
-- <br>
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Info-CHILDES" group.<br>
To post to this group, send email to <a href="mailto:info-childes@googlegroups.com">info-childes@googlegroups.com</a>.<br>
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to <a href="mailto:info-childes+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com">info-childes+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com</a>.<br>
For more options, visit this group at <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/info-childes?hl=en">http://groups.google.com/group/info-childes?hl=en</a>.<br>
</div></blockquote></div><br><div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-size: medium; "><div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; ">Lise Menn Home Office: 303-444-4274</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; ">1625 Mariposa Ave Fax: 303-413-0017</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; ">Boulder CO 80302 </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; ">Professor Emerita of Linguistics </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; ">Fellow, Institute of Cognitive Science</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; ">University of Colorado</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; ">Secretary, AAAS Section Z [Linguistics]</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; ">Campus Mail Address:</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; ">UCB 594, Institute of Cognitive Science</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; ">Campus Physical Address:</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; ">CINC 234</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; ">1777 Exposition Ave, Boulder</font></div></div><div><br></div></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
</div>
<br></div></div></body></html>
<p></p>
-- <br />
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Info-CHILDES" group.<br />
To post to this group, send email to info-childes@googlegroups.com.<br />
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to info-childes+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.<br />
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/info-childes?hl=en.<br />