Lo que hacen los niños: verbos y grado escolar

Abstract

This article compares verbal usage in two groups of Mexican children: one of third graders and the other of sixth graders. The empirical base is a sample of more than 3,800 compositions collected from primary schools all over the country. The verbs of each of the groups were obtained and categorized with respect to their meaning as perceptible and non-perceptible. More specifically, the verbs were sorted into reference sets including body and needs, psychological attributes, interpersonal relations, occupations and others. Based on these classifications, statistically significant semantic differences among younger and older children were established.