GEMS

[Nan Ratner]

This is an interesting thread that is enlivening the summer somewhat. So I offer my own, which is a nice example of a child figuring out the reflexive, but not quite. At about 2 ½ years of age, my daughter Jamie insisted that "I do it Jamieself."
BTW, I am quite sure that there could be one folder in GEMS for the plentiful, amusing and educational misparsings of the input (Jamie's examples: "Koala bear time" for "quality time" (working mother kind of input to kids), or her response to Sunday morning talk shows: "Why are all those grown ups arguing about tissues?" (for the McLaughlin Group afficionados among listmembers)), another folder for coinings, such as Elizabeth and others have offered, another folder for syntactic misanalysis, etc.
I also agree that one really valuable use of these kinds of data is in teaching, where they do put an interesting and sometimes amusing face on the topics at hand.

Regards to all,
Nan


Nan Bernstein Ratner, Ed.D.
Chairman
Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742

301-405-4217
301-314-2023 (FAX)

nratner at hesp.umd.edu


>>> Elizabeth Jancosek <jancosek at spot.colorado.edu> 8/4/2004 1:56:24 PM >>>
The expressions and interesting constructions (GEMS?) of my children 
were useful  examples that I used in courses which I taught.  A 
favorite that comes to mind now---at age 3 our daughter heard a lawn 
mower and commented "someone's lawning!"    On another occasion she 
said "I was thoughting that."


>Betty Jancosek