Editing Native Esperanto speakers (section)

==Grammatical characteristics==
{{see also|Esperanto grammar}}
The Esperanto of native-speaking children differs from the standard Esperanto spoken by their parents.  In some cases this is due to interference from their other native language (the [[adstrate]]), but in others it appears to be an effect of [[language acquisition|acquisition]].

Bergen (2001) found the following patterns in a study of eight native-speaking children, aged 6 to 14, who were bilingual in Hebrew (two siblings), Slovak (two siblings), French, Swiss German, Russian, and Croatian.<ref name="Bergen" />

*Phonological reduction (usually to [[schwa]]) of vowels in common grammatical suffixes and one-syllable grammatical words. This occurred about 5% of the time.  The reduced grammatical suffixes were mostly the ''-o'' of nouns and ''-as'' of present-tense verbs, but occasionally also the ''-a'' of adjectives.  Reduced grammatical words included personal pronouns (which all end in ''i''), the article ''la'' 'the', and prepositions such as ''al'' 'to' and ''je'' (a generic preposition). The article ''la'' was sometimes omitted with the Slavic speakers, as might be expected as a contact effect. 
*Proper nouns were generally unassimilated, either to Esperanto grammatical suffixes or to stress patterns.  Proper nouns are common exceptions to grammatical rules in many languages, and this pattern is common among L2-speakers of Esperanto as well.  However, stress was also observed to vary in native words, for example ''nómiĝas'' 'is/am called' and ''ámikoj'' 'friends' (stress expected on the ''i'' in both cases).
*Children were not observed to use compound tenses (''esti'' + a participle) or aspectual affixes (''ek-, -iĝi, -adi, re-, el-'') on verbal roots.  Except for simple passives, the parents were not observed to use compound tenses either.  However, they did use aspectual affixes (at least in the formal context of Bergen's interviews), but nonetheless the children did not use such affixes even when their other language was Slavic, where aspectual affixes are important.  The closest thing to such forms that the children were observed to use were ''fini'' + verb 'stop doing something', ''komenci'' + verb 'start doing something', ''ankoraŭ'' 'still', and ''kaj poste'' 'and then'; but even then, usage was not as common as equivalents in the adstrate language.  ''-Iĝi'' was, however, used on adjectival roots:
::''Malheliĝas kaj ili ankoraŭ estas ĉe la plaĝo.'' – It's becoming dark and they are still on the beach.
*The word order was mostly [[subject-verb-object|SVO]]. [[object-subject-verb|OSV]] order was also attested, but half of all instances were with the child who spoke Swiss German, which allows preposing the object.
*Related to the fixed word order, there is evidence that the [[accusative case]] has become redundant.  Usage closely reflects the role of case in the adstrate language, being used only where consistent with the other language, but not always even there.  Usage ranged from ≈100% with the Slovak-speaking children, to 0% with the French-speaking child,<ref>Bergen did not count the set expression ''saluton!'' 'hello!', which was used by all the children but involves no active grammar.</ref> despite the fact that the French mother consistently used the accusative case in her own speech.  Slovak has an accusative case on nouns, French does not.  Other children used the accusative in only some of the contexts required by standard Esperanto, largely reflecting usage in their other language.  There were other patterns to emerge as well. The Croatian child, for example, used the accusative only on personal pronouns immediately following a verb, a feature of reduction to clitic form common in Croatian (underlined):
::''En la sepa, unu infano <u>prenis</u> lia'''n''' ŝtrumpo.'' (Standard: ''lia'''n''' ŝtrumpo'''n''''') – At seven o'clock, a child <u>took</u> hi'''s''' sock.
:but
::''Poste li iris kaj poste li <u>prenis</u> en unu mano lia simio.'' (Standard: ''lia'''n''' simio'''n''''') – Then he went and then he <u>took</u> in one hand his monkey.

Among children that do use the accusative, its usage may be regularized from adult usage, at least at young ages. For example, when a screw dropped out of a lock, a young (≤ 5-year-old) child said it ''malvenis la pordo'''n'''.'' Besides the novel use of ''mal-'' with ''veni'' 'to come' to mean 'come away from', the accusative is not used in adult speech for motion away, but only motion towards.  However, in this case the child generalized the usage of the accusative for direct objects.<ref name=Corsetti/>

Lindstedt, on the other hand, referencing Bergen's study, contends that "it is difficult to find convincing examples of changes introduced by the process of nativisation. All examples proposed seem rather to be due to (1) transfers from the children’s other native languages, (2) differences between the spoken and written register of Esperanto and, in some cases, (3) incomplete acquisition." Some of the features, such as phonological reduction, can be found in the speech of some fluent non-native speakers, while some other, such as the attrition of the accusative, are completely absent from the speech of some native-speaking children.<ref name="lindstedt"/>