originating from Bogoyvalenskiy, D

[Clarke, John E]

Dear Thora

Thank you for your message. I agree with you whole-heartedly. Saying a child
has or has not acquired 'good-better' through a wug-test is an
over-simplification and that was my point really. In that sense it is
interesting to see when, as you suggest, comparatives are acquired
metalinguistically (and subconsciously) as lexical subentries of an
adjective, when  'better' relates to 'good'. The wug-test becomes something
other then when you test an irregular like 'good-better' because you are
testing other knowledge, not related to morphology, knowledge of more or
morphological productivity. However, in that primary sense of more versus
-er, comparatives then also relate to language development (outside of other
cognitive development), a system which in English involves both syntax and a
suffix.

Thank you so much for your interest and receive kind regards from

John
MA Language Acquisition
University of Essex, UK