Verb inflection in Simon’s narratives

Turning to verb inflection in Simon’s narratives, we remarked previously on the early production of constructions with the 3^rd person singular form ist (‘is’) of the German copula verb sein (‘to be’), a form used also with plural subject arguments, and, at times, in combination with non-finite main verb forms. The analysis of the main verb forms produced by Simon reveals that he uses infinitive forms not only in this file but also throughout the whole corpus irrespective of the person and number of the subject. It becomes apparent then that the only verb form correctly marked for agreement with 3s subjects is the expletive form “ist”: in file 1, for example, Simon produces 9 constructions that are correct out of 12 total instances. By contrast, constructions with main verb forms are mostly target-deviant because Simon fails to inflect the verb correctly. This finding clearly sets Simon apart from other participants in this study who make a progress in marking subject-verb agreement.

For further illustration we provide an overview in Table 4.13. In this table, the verb forms produced by Simon are listed alphabetically by file in the third column, and the person/number they encode in the fourth column. Information on person/number of the respective subject arguments, where this information differs from the one encoded in the verb form produced, is provided in the fifth column (“OK” in this column indicates that the forms produced are target-like). As we can see, target-like 3^rd person singular main verb forms occur only rarely, whereas 3^rd person plural verb forms that conform with the target appear more frequently. It must be noted, however, that 3^rd person plural verb forms are identical with the respective non-finite infinitive forms. Not only are these forms ambiguous concerning subject-verb agreement, in addition we need to consider that Simon uses these non-finite forms also with 3^rd person singular subjects.

Table 4.13: Verb forms in Simon’s narratives.

Table 4.13: continued

Table 4.13: continued

The numbers for absolute and relative frequencies of verb inflection errors and verb drop in Simon’s narratives are provided in Table 4.14. Worthy of mention among those forms we categorise as “other inflection errors” are those forms that do not appear with no or a final -e ending. The frequency of these “default” forms increases substantially as of file 4 (from a percentage of 14.6 in file 3 to 45.7 in file 4 and 50 in file 5). Note that the increase of these forms goes along with a decrease of infinitives (from 29.3% in file 3 to 17.1% in file 4, with a slight increase in file 5 to 25%). By the end of the recording time default and infinitive forms are used alternatively, they also occur with the same verbs and seem to be chosen irrespective of the subject person/number. So, although we might regard default forms as precursors for inflected forms, the ongoing alternation of default and infinitive forms suggests that Simon is still confronted with the task of acquiring the knowledge about the mechanisms that constrain subject-verb agreement. In a similar vein, we might speculate on the precursor character of the occasional combinations of the copula form ist with finite or non-finite main verb forms. By assumption, the combination of the copula form ist with infinitive main verb forms such as schlafen (‘to sleep’) in example (473) above serves the function of a finite tense marking in the absence of the target verb inflection paradigm.

If we look at Simon’s development over time (cf. Figure 4.9 and Table 4.14), we can see not only that he does not master verb inflection by the end of the recording time. What the overviews make apparent is that the relative frequency of errors in the area of verb inflection increases dramatically in the course of the recording time, from a rate of 50.0% in file 1 to a rate of 87.5% in file 5. This increase reflects not only the use of default forms in later files. It patterns also with the changes observed previously at the level word order and narrative complexity. As we noted, Simon’s productions do not reflect a structural expansion in the time span covered by the present study. However, as word order patterns become more varied, and the events described more complex, mismatches at the level of verb inflection become more apparent.

Table 4.14: Verb inflection and verb drop in Simon’s narratives.*

• * F= file, n= clauses, V= verbs, Errors Z= AGR/TNS (verb inflection) errors, 0V= verb drop, 0 cop= copula drop (percentages in relation to total verb drop), -fin= infinitives, x= other inflection errors (numbers for default -e or -0 verb ending appear in brackets)
• ** File includes one instance of the 2s copula verb (= bist, ‘are’), not included in the table for reasons of space.

Figure 4.9: Verb inflection errors and verb drop in Simon’s narratives.