Transitional phenomena in early language acquisition

ABSTRACT Two transitional phases in the child's early language development are described; the first occurs between prelinguistic vocalization and one-word speech and the second between one-word and patterned speech. Cognitive, linguistic and affective inputs to the acquisition of reference and syntax are discussed in the light of the transitional phenomena that were found. We claim that each major linguistic stage is preceded by a transitional phase which serves as a bridging device for the next major acquisition; that sound and meaning develop partly independently in language development; and that the child's earliest patterned speech is not organized in terms of knowledge of grammatical categories, but in terms of more fundamental coordinations of conceptual meanings with phonetic outputs. A theoretical framework is proposed which provides a more systematic treatment of transitional phenomena than has previously been provided. The framework allows for interpretations of transitional phenomena and of their relations to the milestone periods of early language development.