3V0361.01 Two words 01/18/79

TWO WORDS — Peggy has long joined /thaet/ with pointing to call another’s attention to some out-of-reach object. We usually interpret this to mean that she wants to either eat, touch, or mouth the object. Peggy likes to take things to herself — cookies or picture frames. The smaller ones we give her; she mouths them and turns them over for inspection. Yesterday, for the first time, she used in my hearing what I consider an intensive, the word /hae/, by which she appears to mean that she is not merely calling our attention to a target object but that she wants to take it to herself (and soon!).

The forms of her expression vary from strings of /thaet/’s to /hae/thaet/ (two sounds, equally stressed, both heavy; level intonation) to a more staccato form of /hae/thaet/ where the first sound has shorter duration and is unstressed.

The relative frequency of the 3 forms is about 3 to 1 for the first to second with the third being very rare.

RELEVANCE — It appears that approaching one year Peggy is extending a proto-holophrastic into a two proto-word phrase. Why? Is putting one thing after another hard? Doesn’t she frequently hear in response to her ‘thating’ [?]

– do you want that?

– want to have that?

– you can’t have that!
Indeed she does. If stress and tone of the last two sounds are frequently heavy and common respectively.

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