28-Month-Old Not Putting Phrases Together

  • Existence "Here is..."
  • Agent-Action "Car go."
  • Action-Object "Throw ball."
  • Locative-Action "Car go in."
  • Locative-State "Go home."
  • Attribution "Big car."
  • Possession "My car." (Get used to this one!)
    • Two to Two-and-a-Half Years (Brown’s Stage II)

    • Early Embeddings "Gonna go..." "Wanna cookie..."
    • Morphemes

      • -ing action "Running" "Swinging" "Eating"
      • plural -s marker "Shoes"
      • in "Put in the box."
    Two-and-a-Half to Three Years (Brown’s Stage III)

    • Auxiliaries "I am hot."
    • Later wh-questions "Where is that?"
    • Interrogative Reversal "Is she...?" rather than "She is...?"
    • Morphemes

      • on "Put on the table."
      • possessive -s marker "Mommy’s car."

    • Personal (me, you) and demonstrative (this, that) pronouns

    These stages progress through Stage V at about four-and-a-half years. As always, there is some debate on the exact sequence of acquisition of these units—language is an inexact science. These are general guidelines to follow and parents should not panic if their child is not producing each stage element. However, it is a useful tool in deciding which vocabulary words to focus on during self talk, parallel talk, and descriptions.

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