u/Sea-Hornet8214

Should the question tags in sentences with negative pronouns also be negative or affirmative? It's a bit confusing because the verbs are not negated.

In normal sentences like "He is kind, isn't he?", the question tags are obvious, but what about these sentences:

• He will never regret his decisions, will/won't he?

• No one saw us sneak out, did/didn't they?

• Nothing is good enough for you, is/isn't it?

I originally thought it was "pull up your sleeves" but recently learnt that "roll up" is the appropriate verb to use. Is the same verb used for trousers' legs? Would you say "roll up your legs"? Does that make sense?

• (When/While) staying home, I like it (if/when) it (rains/is raining).

I really appreciate your help. Thank you.

Title

I've heard that it's a misnomer. Are there more accurate terms?

I've lived in different parts of the country, rural and urban (except Malaysian Borneo). I wouldn't say it's common but I've noticed that it does happen in some cases. This is possible because some people don't speak English and/or Malay.

For example, some elderly Chinese might only speak their Chinese "dialects" like Cantonese or Hokkien and limited Malay. In that case, even another Chinese person who speaks Mandarin but not their dialect might have trouble communicating with them. It's more of a fringe case, though.

Some rural Malays only speak Malay and little to no English. Knowing only Malay gets you around the country most of the time, but some people don't speak much Malay, so they might still experience language barriers, especially if they speak a strong regional dialect with a thick accent.

Basically, not knowing much English and Malay here forces you to live in a bubble and ethnic enclaves, which some people actually do. You absolutely need to know either English or Malay to integrate into the society.

What are the differences between "get" and "have" in these example sentences?

• I had my teeth pulled // I got my teeth pulled

• I'm having my ears pierced // I'm getting my ears pierced

In his seminal 1973 longitudinal study, linguist Roger Brown established a strict natural order of morpheme acquisition in English. Out of 14 foundational grammatical morphemes, the third-person singular -s was found to be the second-to-last to develop, usually tracking well behind plural -s, possessive -s, and past tense -ed. While native children master plurals by age 2 or 3, they frequently omit the third-person singular -s (saying "he run" instead of "he runs") until they are 4 or 5 years old.

• Low Communicative Redundancy

>The verbal -s suffix carries no vital meaning or communicative value. If a child says "He run fast" instead of "He runs fast," the meaning is perfectly clear because the subject pronoun "He" already establishes that the action is third-person singular. Because omitting the suffix never causes a misunderstanding, children lack communicative pressure to learn it quickly.

• Complex Phonology

>Adding an "s" sound to the end of a verb often results in complex consonant clusters at the end of words (known as complex codas).It is much easier for a toddler to say the base form "need" or "put" than it is to pronounce the clustered endings in "needs" (/dz/) or "puts" (/ts/).Studies reveal that children produce the third-person suffix far more accurately on phonologically simple verbs than on verbs requiring complex cluster adjustments.

• Confounding Syntactic Input

>In early childhood speech, youngsters frequently hear questions and negative phrases that legally strip the -s away from third-person singular subjects: "Does the boy want a toy?" (Not wants), "He can run fast." (Not runs), "She doesn't like milk." (Not likes). Because children continuously extract non-finite subject-verb fragments from these adult sentences, their brains face mixed statistical data on whether a third-person subject truly requires an -s.

• High Structural Asymmetry

>Modern English has lost almost all of its historical verb conjugation system. In the present tense, we say: I walk, You walk, We walk, They walk, He/She/It walks. Because the bare, uninflected form of the verb is used 80% of the time, the regular pattern reinforces the uninflected form. The third-person singular stands completely alone as a structural anomaly. Children prefer symmetrical, broad patterns, so they unconsciously treat the suffix-free version as the default rule.

As a non-native speaker, I find this really fascinating as it explains why my classmates and I couldn't acquire this rule even though we were reminded of it ad nauseam by our teachers. Even now that I've been able to apply it consistently, I might still sometimes get it wrong when the subjects are tricky (e.g. either...or...).

I know non-native speakers who speak English every day and have an extensive vocabulary, but doesn't apply this rule or doesn't care to remember it as everyone understands them just fine.

As an ESL teacher, did you know this? Do any of your students struggle with this rule?

As a native English speaker, have you observed this in small children?