Child Speech in term of Structure and Function

Communication development is a very important part of the human development. As the child grows older, s/he develops the ability to communicate. Verbal communication ( represented by language), represents a major part of? communication development. Language is a communication system used to share information with others( including ourselves as we do when we think in language( Hayens & Shulman,1998. p.6) others may define language as a shared system of verbal symbols and rules that allow us to represent concepts and experiences to communicate with others(James, 1990. p.2).

?Language is composed of five components. Phonology which concerned with speech sounds, morphology which is concerned with meaningful units, semantics or meanings, pragmatics or language use, and finally the syntax which is mainly considered with grammar and sentence formation ( James, 1990). Syntax involves word order rules, rules for combining word into phrases, and rules for creating different types of sentences, such as questions and passive sentences (James, 1990. p.13-15). Syntax also considers the sentences from the perspective of their structures and functions( Fare'e et al, 2006. p154) which will be our concern in this study.

( Fare'e et al, 2006. p.154-156) have revised how sentences are structured and what their function could be.

?From the structure perspective, sentences could be divided into four structures, simple, compound. Complex, and compound-complex. Simple sentence is the one that does not compose of ( a clause with a syntactic function) in its components e.g. ( a new car). A compound sentence Is the one that is formed by two simple sentences with a coordinator between them (and-or-but) e.g. (this is the room and this is the computer).complex sentence is the one that have main clause and a subordinate clause with a syntactic function e.g. ( I love this show because it is amazing). The last structure is the compound-complex sentence which has two sentences compounded by a coordinator and at least on of them is a complex sentence e.g. ( the man said that he will go to Riyadh because his father is sick).

Sentences' functions are illustrated as declarative( it is snowing), interrogative( do you like ice cream?), imperative( go home), exclamatory( what a big lion).