The Grammar of Love

It's a fascinating thing to contemplate how people learn language. Just from hearing speech, baby brains not only learn words and pronunciation; they also derive the rules of grammar. No one explains to a three-year-old that "I go" but "he goes" because of the difference between first- and third-person subjects. We just talk, and the brain figures out how to conjugate verbs. Incredible.

According to my linguist friend, as young brains develop, they learn words before rules, simple rules before more complex ones. This is why a child will start out by using all verbs in the present tense: "Yesterday, I go to the store." Then she will learn the word "went" and start saying "Yesterday, I went to the store." They her brain will figure out the rule that verbs in the past tense end with -ed, so she will switch to saying, "Yesterday I goed to the store." Although this seems like losing ground, since she moves from the correct usage to an incorrect one, it is actually an advancement, since it shows she has learned a new grammar rule. Finally, she will learn that "go" is an irregular verb, that its past tense is "went," and she will switch back, permanently, to "Yesterday, I went to the store."

I find it simply amazing that all the complexities of English grammar are reverse-engineered like this by every child who starts learning the language. That our brains are such flexible and clever structures that they can figure out the rules that everyone else is following without ever being told what those rules are.

This is in part by way of introducing the idiosyncrasy that has crept into Daughter's speech of late. It's a new word that she has invented: wellly. I think it has to be spelled with three ls because this is her way of trying to form an adverb. She already knew the word "well." She used to use it properly: "Mama, I can't draw this very well." But then she figured out that adverbs end in -ly (not that she knows the word adverb or could identify one in a sentence). And so instead of switching to "Mama, I can't draw this very goodly," she decided that the word "well" could only be use properly if it ended in -ly also. Hence: well-ly. (She pronounces it with two very distinct syllables.) "Mama, I can't draw this car very wellly. Can you please help?"

Like her fondness for the color lellow, or her brother's pronunciation of words that start with "th" as though they start with "d" (Mama! watch dis!), this little tic of speech is completely endearing. I love the baby imperfection mixed with the preschooler sentiment. My ear lingers fondly over those linguistic moments that signal both their development and the long way they have to go.

Son, when he was about four, gave up "dis" and "dat" and switched, with a precision that bespoke real determination on his part, to "this" and "that." I felt a little tug at my heart when the baby speech disappeared.

I have been lovingly registering every utterance of "wellly" for the same reason, I think. It is perfect in its imperfection. A perfect register, in just six letters, of what it means for Daughter to be four.

And then, this past week, Son suddenly made the leap into the subjunctive. He no longer says, "I wish I was faster." He now says, "I wish I were faster." The were is correct. That tiny piece of correct grammar, though, deals me a shock every time I hear it.

In that were, I hear him growing up. I realize with a start how far he is beyond baby grammar and preschool pronunciation.

I find myself hoping Daughter keeps saying wellly for a while, if only to balance out the whizzing forward that I feel when her big brother opens his mouth to speak.

I don't want them to be babies forever, of course. But a tiny piece of me can't help noticing that although everyone says that the time moves so fast, and you hardly blink and they're bigger, in fact, I do see it happening. It's as if, right before my eyes, they step up one more notch. There is a pride and wonder in their own voices as they master those linguistic milestones.

And so, I want to register it. I don't want to blink and suddenly find them older. I want to savor and adore the growing up, even as I long for the baby that is left behind. I want to embrace and love these moments, so that I do not find myself, one day, feeling as though I missed it all.

Today, I want to be sure that I listen. And that I hear them very, very wellly.