Verb Innovations In Spontaneous Speech of Children

This paper is devoted to the acquisition of English verb morphology by English-speaking children aged 5-7. We also use data from Russian language acquisition. Child mistakes (or innovations as we call them) in formation of verb forms are studied. Special attention is paid to the factors that influence the choice of a verb paradigm in child speech. These factors are type and token frequency, cumulative frequency and phonological properties of a verb. The following claims are being tested: a) innovations and semantic errors are more frequent in narratives than in dialogues as narration requires longer planning. Therefore, less effort can be spent on grammar; b) occurrence of innovations in child speech is determined by token and type frequency as well as phonological properties of a verb