stage acquisition of inflections

Question 1

🔤 3-Stage Acquisition of Inflections

Answer 1

Inflections are the endings we add to words to show things like tense, number, or possession (e.g. -ed, -s, -ing). Children learn these in predictable stages.

1️⃣ Stage One – No Inflection
👶 Children use the base form of words without inflections.

Example:
“Daddy go work.” (instead of “Daddy goes to work.”)

2️⃣ Stage Two – Overgeneralisation
🧒 Children learn the rule and apply it to everything, even irregular words.

Example:
“He goed to the park.”
“Two mouses.”

➡️ This shows they understand the rule (e.g. adding -ed for past tense), but haven’t yet learned exceptions.

3️⃣ Stage Three – Correct Usage
👧 Children begin to use correct inflections, including irregular forms.

Example:
“He went to the park.”
“Two mice.”
“She is running.”

➡️ They now understand both regular and irregular forms.