Brown's Stages of Syntactic and Morphological Development

Stage V
Stage IV
Stage III
Stage II
Stage I
3rd person irregular

he does, she has
11
Uncontractible auxiliary (the full form of the verb 'to be' when it is an auxiliary verb in a sentence)

Are they swimming?



12
Contractible copula (the shortened form of the verb 'to be' when it is the only verb in a sentence

She's ready.
They're here.


13
Contractible auxiliary (the shortened form of the verb 'to be' when it is an auxiliary verb in a sentence)

They're coming.
He's going.


14
articles

a book, the ball
8
regular past tense

she jumped
9
third person regular present tense

the winner takes it
10
36 - 42 months
MLU- 2.75
7
28 - 36 months
"in box"
"it going"
MLU- Mean Length of Utterance
1.75
15 - 30 months
Brown's Stages of Syntactic and Morphological Development
Typical Expressive Language Development
"Brown's Stages" were identified by Roger Brown 1925-1997 and described in his classic book (Brown,1973).

The stages provide a framework within which to understand and predict the path that normal expressive language development usually takes, in terms of morphology and syntax.

Morphology
is the branch of grammar devoted to the study of the structure or forms of words, primarily through the use of the
morpheme
construct.
Syntax
is a traditional term for the study of the rules governing the combination of words to form sentences.
A morpheme is a unit of meaning.

SEND- 1 word = 1 unit of meaning
RESEND- 1 word = 2 units of meaning
Nomination that car That's a car
Recurrence more juice There is more juice
Negation-denial no soo soo I didn't do soo soo
Negation-rejection no more I don't want more
Negation-
non-existence birdie go The bird has gone

Reference
Examples
Intent
Action + Agent daddy kiss Daddy is kissing
Action + Object push truck Pushing the truck
Agent + Object man hat The man (wears) a hat
Action + Locative in bath I am in the bath
Entity + Locative dolly bed The dolly is on the bed
Possessor + Possession
(object) Kim car Kim's car
Entity + Attributive water hot The water is hot
Demonstrative + Entity that train Not this train

Semantic Relationship
Examples
Intent
MLU- 2.25
1
present progressive
2
in
3
on
4
-s plural
"on box"
"my dolls"
5
6
irregular past tense
's posessive

man's book
uncontractible copula

Is it mommy?
40 - 46 months
MLU- 3.5
42 - 52+ months
MLU- 4. 0
Reference
Brown, R. (1973). A first language: The early stages. London: George Allen & Unwin

In http://www.speech-language-therapy.com/
me fell down