Pronoun reversals: who, when, and why?

Abstract

Seventeen of a sample of 30 precocious talkers aged 1;8 produced at least one pronoun reversal (I/you) during unstructured play. This finding led to an examination of the role of cognitive and linguistic individual differences as well as contextual factors and processing complexity as determinants of pronoun reversal. Contrary to predictions derived from previous hypotheses, there were few differences between reversers and non-reversers, other than higher use of second person forms by reversers. Reversals were more likely to occur in certain contexts: semantically reversible predicates with two noun phrases, and in imitations (though the rate of imitation was lower overall in reversers). We propose that pronoun reversals commonly result from a failure to perform a deictic shift, which is especially likely when children's psycholinguistic processing resources are taxed. Children who did not produce any pronoun reversals tended to avoid pronoun use, especially second person forms. Overt reversal may thus reflect a risk-taking approach to language acquisition, which may be particularly characteristic of precocious children.

“You’re telling me!” The prevalence and predictors of pronoun reversals in children with autism spectrum disorders and typical development

“…Reversal errors involve the person component, such that ‘I’ and ‘you’ become confused. These errors are attested in TD toddlers’ spontaneous speech, albeit at varying rates; pronouns typically emerge around 1.5 years of age and reversals are most common before 2.5 years (Chiat, 1982; Clark, 1978; Charney, 1980; Dale & Crain-Thoreson, 1993; Evans & Demuth, 2012; Loveland & Landry, 1988; Oshima-Takane, 1992; Oshima-Takane. Goodz & Derensky, 1996), and have been hypothesized to derive at least partially, from their linguistic immaturity.…”

“…Goodz & Derensky, 1996), and have been hypothesized to derive at least partially, from their linguistic immaturity. That is, before children have worked out the paradigm, personal pronouns may be subject to language processing constraints, and/or used as frozen forms within specific discourse contexts (Dale & Crain-Thoreson, 1993; Lee, et al, 1994). As children develop better language skills, they are able to access the pronoun paradigm with greater facility, and the reversals cease.…”

“…On this account, a higher rate of pronoun reversals in children with ASD may be attributable to their delayed onset of language (Tager-Flusberg et al, 1990; Tek, Mesite, Fein & Naigles, 2014), and/or subtle deficits in their use of specific grammatical forms (Eigsti, Bennetto & Dadlani, 2007; Tager-Flusberg, 2006). Across multiple studies, both TD children and children with ASD have been reported to use more pronoun reversals in imitative contexts (Dale & Crain-Thoreson, 1993; Evans & Demuth, 2012; Roberts, 1989; Tager-Flusberg et al, 2005), suggesting that these pronouns were not yet linguistically productive (i.e., integrated into the grammatical system).…”

“…Notably, both children reversed first and second person pronouns at much higher rates than usually reported for TD children (80–95%, cf. Dale & Crain-Thoreson, 1993), and one was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome at 5 years of age. The authors propose that the children’s linguistic precocity and high pronoun reversal rate were connected, such that they had begun to acquire the pronominal paradigm before their social capacities grasped its deictic (perspective-taking) nature.…”

Using context and sensory data to learn first and second person pronouns

“…Children with precocious language development before the age of two often use "you" when they mean "I" [2]. Though it is not clear whether all children pass through this phase [3], two groups of children in particular are known for their tendency to switch first and second-person pronouns.…”