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How inflection can create reading comprehension problems

August 2, 2009

Inflecting a single word can completely change the meaning of a sentence, and this can cause serious comprehension problems during reading. This problem is linked to the imaginary voice you hear inside your head when reading. The imaginary voice also dictates what to put down while writing. The problem is that printed words do not show their inflection, and this can cause comprehension problems for your children and you during reading. This month, we shall learn more about this serious comprehension problem, and a simple solution that can help fix it.

Take a look at this sentence: “I didn’t say she ate the sandwich.” Did you find it confusing? Inflecting the words in this sentence will profoundly alter its meaning. To simulate inflection, I will bold the word in the sentence that I want you to hear in an emphasized tone.

What does this sentence mean: “I didn’t say that she ate the sandwich?” The emphasis on the word “I” is my why of saying it wasn’t me but someone else who ate the sandwich.

Now let’s place the emphasis on the word “SAY.” I didn’t SAY that she ate the sandwich. What does this mean? I might have pointed at her, or implied that it was she, but I never actually said it to you verbally.

When I put the emphasis on “SHE”, we again get a totally different meaning: “I didn’t say that SHE ate the sandwich.” I told you that someone else was responsible for eating it.

Now I’m going to emphasize the word “ATE”: I didn’t say that she ATE the sandwich. Now we get a completely different meaning. Perhaps I said she threw the sandwich away, or that she ate the dessert, but in no way did I say that she was responsible for eating the sandwich.

In our final example, I shall place the emphasis on the word “SANDWICH”: I didn’t say that she ate the SANDWICH. Perhaps I told you that she ate an apple, but I never told you that it was a sandwich that was eaten by her.

Notice how by simply changing the emphasis of a single word in a sentence, I altered the meaning. Fortunately there is an easy solution to this problem. If a writer used inflection to create meaning in a sentence, and your brain is hearing the wrong inflection pattern, then you might try reading the sentence placing emphasis each time on a different word to see if that changes its meaning and makes the sentence comprehensible. I don’t recommend doing this very often, but if a sentence is particularly important and if inflection is causing the comprehension problem, then this is an easy way to fix it.

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