KATEGORIA OSOBY I KATEGORIA LICZBY W TEKSTACH KIEROWANYCH DO MAŁYCH DZIECI
‘Person’ and ‘Number’ Categories in Utterances Addressed to Small Children

Summary/Abstract: The paper presents a few selected morphological features of utterances addressed to children. The author is interested in two grammatical categories: ‘person’ and ‘number’ used in verbal forms. The article answers some questions connected with the discussed categories, for example: 1. Why (when we talk to children) do we use verbs in the third person, i.e. Mummy is preparing dinner for you? 2. Why do we use plural forms of verbs (even if the co-situation is totally inadequate), i.e. And now we are changing the nappy. The analysis is based on the linguistic material collected during the so-called participating observation – all the analyzed utterances represent texts created by adults and addressed to infants and toddlers.

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