Acquisition of Word-formation Competence by Children Aged 3 to 6 Based on the Example of nomina agentis

The article presents how preschool children (aged 3 to 6) develop word-formation competences in the category of nomina agentis (names agents). linguistic material was collected with author’s questionnaire. tasks this questionnaire were preceded by an example that led child correct word formation scheme. quantitative and qualitative analysis created division into verbal formants (-acz -ator) nominal (-arz -owiec). included coding (creation) decoding (an indication motivating word) derivatives.The research showed process acquiring skills worked case similar social backgrounds. They confirmed their word-building competence increased linearly, indicated age at which they start developing these functions what strategies used when unable complete tasks. Among 1,280 researched utterances, most common children’s operations creation tranpositional derivatives (e.g. słuchanie), neologisms organizacz, organizek, organizant; dokuczaniec, dokucznik; mydłowiec), alternation adding connectives zabaw-l-owiec; kostk-ow-ek). conclusions reached after compared hypotheses found literature on subject matter results other researchers.