A native English speaker says “swimmed” instead of “swam” but corrects himself. This momentary error is an example of a lapse in:

💡 Explanation:

Noam Chomsky distinguished between Competence (the idealized, unconscious knowledge of language rules) and Performance (the actual use of language in concrete situations, which is affected by factors like fatigue, memory, and distraction, leading to slips of the tongue). A native speaker knows the correct past tense (Competence) but momentarily errs in production (Performance).