The Wug Test: How children learn grammatical rules

What can a simple word game tell us about how children learn languages?

0:00 How do children learn English plurals?
0:59 How English plurals work
1:55 The Wug Test
2:15 Results
3:47 Language Universals

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Recommended Reading: “How children learn and unlearn the languages of the world”

Sources

[melissabeaton]

I've watched about five explanations for the Wug Test this evening, and this one is the best so far. Thank you!

[QuotePilgrim]

I'm fluent in English as a second language, and I just realized that I always pronounce the -s in plural forms as /s/, never as /z/, at least when I say those words in isolation.

My best guess is that it's because that's how plural behaves in Portuguese, although we do use /z/ when the next word starts with a vowel.

[montaukmagnifique]

I love that you broke down how native English teachers use the rules intuitively! I had no idea you were a smaller YouTuber seeing this on Tumblr. You have a great presentation style and a friendly voice that’s so suitable for sharing bite-sized info like what’s in this video!

[ExtantThylacine]

I'd have said wugren. Now there are two nouns in the English language whose plural is formed with -ren.

[QuotePilgrim]

Nah the plural of wug is definitely wig.

[ChristopherAurora-sw]

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