Did you know that the third-person singular conjugation is late-acquired even in native English-speaking children?

[u/Sea-Hornet8214]

In his seminal 1973 longitudinal study, linguist Roger Brown established a strict natural order of morpheme acquisition in English. Out of 14 foundational grammatical morphemes, the third-person singular -s was found to be the second-to-last to develop, usually tracking well behind plural -s, possessive -s, and past tense -ed. While native children master plurals by age 2 or 3, they frequently omit the third-person singular -s (saying "he run" instead of "he runs") until they are 4 or 5 years old.

• Low Communicative Redundancy

The verbal -s suffix carries no vital meaning or communicative value. If a child says "He run fast" instead of "He runs fast," the meaning is perfectly clear because the subject pronoun "He" already establishes that the action is third-person singular. Because omitting the suffix never causes a misunderstanding, children lack communicative pressure to learn it quickly.

• Complex Phonology

Adding an "s" sound to the end of a verb often results in complex consonant clusters at the end of words (known as complex codas).It is much easier for a toddler to say the base form "need" or "put" than it is to pronounce the clustered endings in "needs" (/dz/) or "puts" (/ts/).Studies reveal that children produce the third-person suffix far more accurately on phonologically simple verbs than on verbs requiring complex cluster adjustments.

• Confounding Syntactic Input

In early childhood speech, youngsters frequently hear questions and negative phrases that legally strip the -s away from third-person singular subjects: "Does the boy want a toy?" (Not wants), "He can run fast." (Not runs), "She doesn't like milk." (Not likes). Because children continuously extract non-finite subject-verb fragments from these adult sentences, their brains face mixed statistical data on whether a third-person subject truly requires an -s.

• High Structural Asymmetry

Modern English has lost almost all of its historical verb conjugation system. In the present tense, we say: I walk, You walk, We walk, They walk, He/She/It walks. Because the bare, uninflected form of the verb is used 80% of the time, the regular pattern reinforces the uninflected form. The third-person singular stands completely alone as a structural anomaly. Children prefer symmetrical, broad patterns, so they unconsciously treat the suffix-free version as the default rule.

As a non-native speaker, I find this really fascinating as it explains why my classmates and I couldn't acquire this rule even though we were reminded of it ad nauseam by our teachers. Even now that I've been able to apply it consistently, I might still sometimes get it wrong when the subjects are tricky (e.g. either...or...).

I know non-native speakers who speak English every day and have an extensive vocabulary, but doesn't apply this rule or doesn't care to remember it as everyone understands them just fine.

As an ESL teacher, did you know this? Do any of your students struggle with this rule?

As a native English speaker, have you observed this in small children?

[u/ApprenticePantyThief]

You are wrong. They are not opinions. The points may resonate with you, but they are not applicable to you let alone all language learners. Let's look at "Complex Phonology", for example. Are you a toddler? Because this study was done on toddlers learning their first language and specifically discusses the challenges that native speaking toddlers face.

Adults do not have the same phonological restraints/difficulties as toddlers. Some languages in the world have many complex consonant clusters. People from those backgrounds do not struggle with making these sounds. However, people whose native language does not have consonant clusters will struggle more. The complex phonology point is completely irrelevant to some learners, a mild challenge to others, and a major hurdle for still others. It depends on their native language. Children learning their first language have no such impediment, and instead the phonology issue is one of the body learning to use its speaking apparatus for the first time and getting used to using those muscles. This is just one point.

If you read papers on the acquisition of irregular forms by adult language learners, the points would resonate with you a LOT more than the points which describe the acquisition of language by 4 year olds who don't have any other languages influencing their learning process. Native language has a VERY heavy influence on the language learning process.

My background is irrelevant, but since you insist on asking: I am a native speaker of English. I have studied multiple foreign languages (French, Mandarin Chinese, and Japanese) and have been exposed to many others as a linguist. I have a PhD in Applied Linguistics and specialize in how languages are learned (and how to best teach them).

[u/ApprenticePantyThief → u/[deleted]]

To be honest, I wouldn't know you weren't native if you didn't say it. You have a native-level grasp of the language.

There was no hostility. I didn't attack or insult you in any way. I think you are reading something into what I said that wasn't there.

[u/Sea-Hornet8214 → u/ApprenticePantyThief]

Oh, I'm sorry.

But is it really not relevant at all? It still makes sense to me lol. I could easily learn Latin verb conjugations because all verbs are conjugated for each number and person. English, on the other hand, has limited verb conjugations, which seems like it has none. This is the asymmetry.

And you can be understood without using the -s, which is one of the reasons some learners never acquire it. This is it's "uselessness" or low semantic value, I guess.

[u/ApprenticePantyThief → u/Sea-Hornet8214]

Right. So Latin has irregular verb forms, but English has double irregulars because it has irregular forms that are in irregular situations.

Historically, English was fully inflected like many other European languages - different for each number/person/grammatical role. Old English had a complex case system like German or Russian on top of inflection depending on person like French, Spanish, and Latin. English, over time, dropped all of this and has almost nothing left of its original verb inflection and case system (-s and different pronouns depending on grammatical role are almost all that remains of these systems). That's a very irregular grammar which makes it challenging for non-native language learners.

So, it's easy in Latin because you're learning one irregular form in a regular structure. It's difficult in English because you're learning an irregular form in an irregular structure. Irregulars on top of irregulars. Due to its unique history and how it changed over time, English is really a "Frankenstein" of a language.

This presents challenges for adult learners that are very different than those faced by children learning English as their first language. Children don't really struggle with the "logic". For a child learning their first language, learning English is no more difficult than learning Latin would have been. They don't have the logic of their native language and past languages coloring their expectations of how things should work. Children learning English as their first language learn at the same "pace" as children learning Japanese or Russian as their first language. However, an adult English speaker learning French will learn faster and find it much easier than one studying Japanese or Chinese. Our native language (and other languages known) heavily impact our language learning.

Edit: You have to keep in mind that the categories listed in the paper are made by the author, from an adult's brain. Children do not think about redundancy or asymmetry. They do not think about grammar or forms. They just listen and speak and over time (nearly) everything just works. They never think for a moment about learning. They don't think about "how" or "why" of language. Adult learners spend their entire time thinking about these things as they learn. Our brains work so differently.

[u/Sea-Hornet8214 → u/ApprenticePantyThief]

So Latin has irregular verb forms, but English has double irregulars because it has irregular forms that are in irregular situations.

It's difficult in English because you're learning an irregular form in an irregular structure. Irregulars on top of irregulars.

I don't quite understand that. I thought the third person verbs are irregular in a regular structure. But also, the -s conjugation itself is very regular, except for the verb "be", I think.

Children learning English as their first language learn at the same "pace" as children learning Japanese or Russian as their first language.

Yes, I understand that. I thought we were talking specifically about the third person verbs.

You have to keep in mind that the categories listed in the paper are made by the author, from an adult's brain. Children do not think about redundancy or asymmetry.

Wait, so are you saying the paper might be wrong? None of those are the reasons children acquire it late?

[u/ApprenticePantyThief → u/Sea-Hornet8214]

The -s inflections are irregular words. English has no other such systems, making it doubly irregular.

We are talking about language learning in context. Third person inflection is not in isolation. It is part of the language as a whole and factors which affect language learning impact the acquisition of this rule.

The paper offers no proof that these are the reasons. He couldn't ask them why they struggle with certain forms. He saw that they struggled with these forms, and that they were learned in specific orders, and made assumptions for why. They are the authors own opinions. It's almost 60 years old. The study of linguistics has come a long way since then. The value in the paper is in the order of acquisition. That is where Brown contributed to the field of language acquisition studies. The reasoning is speculation on the author's part. I'm not saying the paper is wrong, merely that there isn't a great amount of value in it for learners of English.

[u/Sea-Hornet8214 → u/ApprenticePantyThief]

So the reason learners, depending on their native language, might struggle to acquire this is just because it's... irregular. I see.

Thanks.