How do children acquire sentences?
Once the first words are in place, children are quick to realize that saying several words together in one same utterance is the next step. So, just as they will attempt to run as soon as they are able to stand up unaided, and will then stumble and fall because of lack of practice walking, they will attempt to say too many words in one go, and will end up jumbling them all together. Many children start stuttering or stammering at this multi-word stage of their development precisely for this reason: lack of practice. Other children may even fall silent altogether for a while, until they’ve worked out the very difficult skill of coordinating breathing with speaking in long utterances. Professional speakers need practice in this skill too, so that speaking for long periods of time does not wear them out completely, or impair their delivery. Yet other children won’t bother at all about the way they sound and will just go on producing unintelligible speech until things fall naturally in pla
