Four-year-old Nina says: "I runned all the way home." This MOST likely indicates that
A) Nina has forgotten the correct way to form the past tense.
B) Nina hears improper verb forms spoken in her home.
C) Nina is still relying on telegraphic speech to convey meaning.
D) Nina is overregularizing a grammatical rule.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Nina is overregularizing a grammatical rule. This is a common phenomenon in language development, where children apply regular rules to irregular forms. In this case, "runned" is the regular past tense formation, but "ran" is the irregular form.

Four-Year-Old Nina Says: "I Runned All the Way Home