3V1033.01 Holophrastic verbs: imitation of Peggy by Miriam as confirmation
(11/20/80)

Peggy imitates Miriam — sure enough — but the opposite is also true.
Miriam has begun imitating Peggy’s single word descriptions…. single
VERB descriptions. Peggy may pick up a cookie, say emphatically “eat”
and pop it in her mouth. When reclaiming toys from the others, she
may seize one with the accompanying utterance, “take”. this usage —
so far as I have observed — only occurs with verbs of physical action.
This is an important example in her behavior of meta-linguistic
knowledge. that is, Peggy clearly distinguishes names (which may go
with pictures) from verbs which describe (her) actions. It is important
(and useful to Peggy) that her siblings imitate her usage in this case —
thereby confirming the subject predicate distinction Peggy already
makes.

note for Gretchen: Can you note more examples of this ? or counter-
examples ?
.

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