Morphology Acquisition
Morphology Acquisition
This chart shows how children develop grammatical morphemes — small parts of words that carry meaning (like adding -s to make plurals or -ing to show something is happening now). Here’s a breakdown of roughly when you can expect a child to add certain morphemes to their sentences:
19 – 28 months:
Present progressive -ing: Describes something happening right now. E.g., crying – "The baby is crying."
29 – 38 months:
Regular plural -s: Adds -s to show more than one. E.g., socks – "I see socks."
Present progressive -ing without auxiliary: Verb with -ing but no helping verb. E.g., baby crying – "Baby crying now."
Semiauxiliaries: Informal verbs like gonna, wanna, gotta. E.g., wanna – "I wanna go."
Overgeneralization of past tense -ed: Using -ed for irregular verbs. E.g., I runned (instead of "I ran").
Possessive -'s: Shows ownership. E.g., girl's hat – "That is the girl’s hat."
Present tense auxiliary verbs: Helping verbs like can, will, be, do. E.g., "I can do it."
39 – 42 months:
Past tense modals: Words like could, should, would for actions that could happen in the past or future. E.g., "I could help."
“Be” verb + present progressive -ing: Shows continuous action with "is" or "are." E.g, "The baby is crying."
43 – 46 months:
Regular past tense -ed: Adds -ed to verbs to show past actions. E.g., He kicked – "He kicked the ball."
Irregular past tense: Verbs with special past forms. E.g., She ate – "She ate dinner."
Regular third-person singular -s: Adds -s to verbs with "he," "she," or "it" as the subject. E.g., He drinks – "He drinks juice."
Articles: Words like a, the that come before nouns. E.g., a boy, the tree – "A boy is climbing the tree."
47 – 50 months:
Contractible auxiliary: Helping verbs that can contract with the subject. E.g., The boy’s talking (instead of "The boy is talking").
Uncontractible copula: Forms of "to be" that can’t be contracted. E.g., It is big – You can’t shorten it to "It's" if it emphasizes "big."
Uncontractible auxiliary: A helping verb that can’t be contracted. E.g., He is swimming – Can’t shorten to "He's" if it emphasizes the action.
Irregular third person singular: Irregular verb forms used with "he," "she," or "it." E.g., She has it – "She has a toy."
Past tense “be” verb: Forms of "was" or "were" in the past. E.g., She was dancing – "She was dancing at the party."
This sequence reflects how children's language develops gradually, from recognizing basic actions to using more complex grammar. Each stage builds on the last, helping children communicate more clearly as they grow.
Please note the above information is general in nature and is not intended as professional medical advice. Please seek an appointment with a registered speech-language pathologist if you are at all worried about your child's development.
References
Brown’s Stages of Syntactic and Morphological Development. (2011). Speech-Language-Therapy.com. https://speech-language-therapy.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=33:brown&catid=2:uncategorised&Itemid=117
Haskill, A. M., Taylor, A. A., & Tolbert, L. C. (2007). Months of Morphemes. Thinking Publications.
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