"First I unbuild it, ok?":
Innovations in Un- Prefixation

Saundra K. Wright
CSU-Chico

Whorf (1956) describes the verbal prefix un- as attaching to a "cryptotype" category--a semantic category identifiable negatively in terms of its restrictions. It designates the reversal of an event, and its distribution is restricted to verbs with covering or surface-attaching meanings. This makes its acquisition difficult: children must determine its general reversative meaning and semantic verb restrictions. Thus, Bowerman (1982) argues that un- is acquired in stages, evidenced by many "violations" in early child speech (e.g., unshorten).

I look more closely at the acquisition of un- and conclude that violations in children's speech aren't specifically associated with stages of acquiring un-, or its cryptotype class, but reflect general error patterns common in language development. I present various speech samples containing children's innovative uses of un- and show that such innovations fall into three general categories: (1) use of un- with innovative verbs; (2) double-marking/overgeneralizations; (3) failure to learn exceptions.