When a preschool girl says, "I breaked my truck," which best characterizes her statement?

The statement "I breaked my truck" exemplifies overgeneralization, a common phenomenon in language development where a child applies a grammatical rule to an irregular verb. In this case, the girl has incorrectly applied the standard past tense rule of adding "-ed" to the verb "break," which is actually an irregular verb that changes to "broke" in the past tense. This illustrates how children often generalize language rules they've learned without yet mastering all the exceptions.

Recognizing this as overgeneralization is important because it reflects the child's developing language skills and understanding of verb conjugation patterns. This stage of language learning is a natural part of language acquisition, showing that the child is actively engaging with and experimenting with the language.