he same child in his fifth
year, to the improper question, "Whom do you like better, papa or
mamma?" answers, "Papa and mamma," we should not infer a lack of that
understanding, as many do (e. g., Heyfelder); but the decision is
impossible to the child. Just so in the case of the question, "Would you
rather have the apple or the pear?"

Other inventions of my child were the verb _messen_ for "mit dem
Messer schneiden" (to cut with the knife); _schiffern_, i. e., "das
Schiff bewegen" (move the ship), for "rudern," (row). And the
preference of the weak inflection on the part of all children is a
proof that _after_ the appropriation of a small number of words
through imitation, independent--always logical--changes of formation
are undertaken. _Gegebt_, _gegeht_, _getrinkt_ (gived, goed, drinked),
have never been heard by the child; but "gewebt, geweht, gewinkt" (as
in English, waved, wafted, beckoned), have been known to him as models
(or other formations corresponding to these). Yet this is by no means
to say that every mutilation or transformation the child proposes is a
copy after an erroneously selected model; rather the child's
imagination has a wide field here and acts in manifold fashion,
especially by combinations. "My teeth-roof pains me," said a boy who
did not yet know the word "palate." Another in his fourth year called
the road (Weg) the "go" (Gehe). A child of three years used the
expression, "Just grow me" (_wachs mich einmal_) for "Just see how I
have grown" (Sieh einmal wie ich gewachsen bin) (Lindner). Such
creations of the childish faculty of combination, arising partly
through blending, partly through transference, are collected in a neat
pamphlet, "Zur Philosophie der Kindersprache," by Agathon Keber, 1868.
The most of them, however, are from a later time of life than that
here treated of. So it is with the two "heretical" utterances
communicated by Roesch. A child said _unterblatte_ (under-leaf) for
"Oblate," because he saw the wafer (Oblate) slipped under the leaf of
paper (Blatt); and he called the "American chair,"
"Herr-Decaner-chair," because somebody who was called "Herr Decan"
used to sit in it. Here may be seen the endeavor to put into the
acoustic impression not understood a meaning. These expressions are
not inventions, but they are evidence of intellect. They can not, of
course, appear in younger children without knowledge of words, because
they are transformations of words.

On the othe