More Amyisms

[pne]

The negation of can used to be don't can ("She don't can sing") but is now often can't can ("She can't can sing"). Amusing :)

She still often uses "can it" rather than "can do it", as in German. (For example, "I can that by myself already" or "Can you it, too?".)

She also seems to be coming to grips with the adjective–adverb distinction; the other day she said, "I just burped loud... (short pause) ...ly".

In German, she sometimes uses a word that sounds a bit like "iffer", which appears to mean "whether"; for example, "Guck mal nach iffer sie noch schläft" (Have a look to see whether she's still sleeping). I imagine the -er ending is from English "whether"; I'm not sure where the rest of the word comes from or why she doesn't simply use "ob".

When I say, "I wonder whether [something or other]/I wonder what [subject verb]", she'll often respond, "I either". (Which is another Amyism for standard "I don't, either"; with several words that occur in negative sentences, she'll often leave out the negative.) I wonder what it's supposed to be a response to; "I don't know whether [something or other]", perhaps? Since "wonder" is not negative syntactically.

Comments

[lexabear.livejournal.com]

Maybe in the last example she means "Me too"? Either/both/too are definitely linked in my mind.

[pne.livejournal.com]

I think that positive agreement would be "I too" in Amyish -- I think that "I either" is limited to negative agreement.

But I can't be certain.

[wingflutter.livejournal.com]

so sweet. "I just burped loud... (short pause) ...ly" is my favourite :)

my brother had this habit, when he was really young, of switching round 'because' and 'of'. It took us a while to get used to it, and it was really amusing!

- Would you like to eat?
- No, of I'm not hungry.

No idea where he got it from!

[conuly]

Maybe iffer just comes from the English word if?

[pne.livejournal.com]

What Amy does is use "because" both for "because" and for "so that"!

So she'll say not only "I'm eating because I'm hungry" but also "I'm watering the plants because they will grow".

[pne.livejournal.com]

Ooh, hadn't thought of that. It might.

Odd that she would use it in German, but she has used English words in German if she didn't know a German word.

[eva]

Aww... all of this is so cute, especially the one with the adverb! But I guess she must be so confused sometimes...

[wingflutter.livejournal.com]

i wonder what it is about 'because' that confuses kids so much...?!

[elgrande.livejournal.com]

"Since "wonder" is not negative syntactically."

Perhaps she thinks that in the context of constructions with "whether", you use "either".

[pne.livejournal.com]

I guess she must be so confused sometimes...

Oh, I'm sure!

"We have to be very carefully walking down the stairs." "We have to walk down the stairs careful." -- What do you mean, they are both wrong? I thought I had just understood which to use! It seems like whatever I say, you correct me! Do the stairs need the -ly on "careful" or not, now?!

That was probably the most common situation where she got things wrong, and I thought she must have been so proud of herself for including the -ly in "we have to be carefully". Poor girl :)