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Stage
Two
Three
Four
Five
Age Range
27 TO 30 MONTHS
31 TO 34 MONTHS
35 TO 40 MONTHS
41 TO 46 MONTHS
MLU
2.0 TO 2.5 MORPHEMES
2.5 TO 3.0 MORPHEMES
3.0 TO 3.75 MORPHEMES
3.75 TO 4.5 MORPHEMES
Grammatical
Morphemes
• Brown's (1973) 14 specified
grammatical morphemes emerge
during the latter months of Stage One
and throughout Stage Two.
• As these morphemes develop, the child
over-extends their uses, e.g., child childs; go - goed.
• Continue to develop.
• Still developing ... slowly but surely.
• Nine of the fourteen specified morphemes
are mastered by the close of Stage Five.
• The remaining five morphemes (irregular
past tense, contractible copula, noncontractable auxiliary, regular third
person, and irregular third person) are
mastered by 50 months.
Pronouns
• Enters Stage Two using I, it, this, and
that.
• Adds my, me, mine, and you.
• More consistent in use of you, your,
yours, she, he, we, this, that, these,
and those.
• More consistent in use of they, us, his,her,
hers, and them.
• More consistent in use of its, our, ours,
him, their, theirs, myself, yourself.
Verbs
• Uses have and do as main verbs and as
auxiliary verbs.
• Produces semi-auxiliary forms: hafta,
gonna, wanna.
• Using the model verbs can, will, and
do more consistently.
• Using the verb to be as both copula
and auxiliary, although there are
mistakes in terms of person and
number.
• Using past tense of common modals:
could, should, would.
• Understands the superlative forms of
common adjectives but does not
understand comparative forms until he is
about 60 months.
Noun Phrases
• Uses only determiners and adjectivals as
modifiers.
• Elaborates in the object position of
sentences.
• Uses a few quantifiers: two, some, a
lot.
• Elaborates in the subject and object
positions of sentences.
• Continues to elaborate by adding only
one element in front of the noun.
• Continues to elaborate by adding only one
element in from of the noun.
Verb Phrases
•Uses present progressive forms of
common verbs.
• Elaborates by using modals and the
auxiliary forms of to be.
• Overextends the regular past tense
form to irregular verbs, e.g., "He
runned away."
• Elaborates by including do in negative
and question forms and by including
modals such as could, would, might, and
must.
• Continues to over-extend the regular past
tense form to irregular verbs.
• Continues to have difficulty matching the
number of subject and the verb.
• Verb phrases become more adult-like as
the child masters verb-related grammatical
morphemes.
Sentences
• Understands that a sentence contains a
noun phrase and verb phrase.
• Produces negation by putting no or not
at the beginning of a sentence.
• Produces a yes/no question by adding a
rising intonation to the end of a
sentence.
• Asks what, where, and why questions.
•Produces the imperative function but not
the imperative form.
• Produces negation by putting no or
not between the subject and predicate
to create an adult-like form. Also uses
contracted negative forms: can't,
don't.
• Questions include auxiliary verbs, and
the elements are properly inverted,
e.g., "She go bye-bye - "Can she go
bye-bye?"
• In addition to what, where, and why,
he produces who and how questions,
often properly inverted.
• Produces the imperative form of
sentences.
• Adds the following contractions in his
productions of negative sentences: didn't,
doesn't, isn't, and aren't.
• Using negative past tense forms of to be,
e.g., weren't, wasn't.
• Occasionally uses negative past tense
modals, e.g., wouldn't, couldn't.
• More consistent in creating questions by
properly inverting words, e.g., "He is
playing baseball." - "Is he playing baseball?"
• Produces primitive tag questions, e.g., "I"m
going now, OK?"
• Embeds relative clauses into the object
position of the sentences, e.g., "That's the
plate that I broke."
• Conjoins clauses, usually with and.
Pragmatics
• Continues to use language to request, to
obtain information, and to respond.
• Most exchanges are still limited to one
or two turns per topic.
• Learns that short pauses mean that
exchanges will continue; long pauses
• Conversational skills improve as a direct
result of more sophisticated language.
• Fewer nonverbal responses than in
Stage One.
• Sustains topic for one or two turns.
• Attempts conversational repairs when
the listener does not understand.
• Primary strategy for maintaining a
topic is repeating part or all of the
utterance produced by his partner.
•Continues to attempt conversational
repairs, usually by using a different
word even if it is not a more
appropriate word.
mean that responses are not forthcoming.
• By the end of Stage Four, is able to sustain
conversation for more than two turns.
• Developing primitive presuppositional
skills, i.e., understanding what the listener
needs to know and providing appropriate
information.
• Beginning to make indirect requests, e.g.,
"Can you pick me up?"
• Increases his use of indirect requests,
although direct request are still far more
common.