There are three general forms of questions asked by children: those that assume a yes/no response, those that begin with a wh- word and assume a more complex answer, and those that are a statement to which agreement is sought by adding a tag, such as "...isn't he?" Examples of these questions are illustrated in the table below.
| Age | Interrogative Question |
| 26 months | Want on? |
| 30 months | What is that thing? Where's my sticker book? |
| 42 months | Chalk used to be here but where did it go? (Conjoining) |
| 46 months | Does yours smell like this? Does this go this way? |
| 50 months | How do you put these on? Let's show the women that's in here, ok? (Immature tag with embedded clause) Can I have a litle bit, too? |
| 61 months | Why are you gonna be back in a little while? (Embedded phrase) |
| 64 months | Do you know what person this is? (Embedded clause) What happens if we break this? (Conjoining) Looks like soap, doesn't it? (Mature tag) I wonder what that is? (Embedded clause) |
Excerpted From:
Excerpt from Language Development: An Introduction, by J.E. Owens, Jr., 2008 edition, p. 288.
© ______ 2008, Allyn & Bacon, an imprint of Pearson Education Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The reproduction, duplication, or distribution of this material by any means including but not limited to email and blogs is strictly prohibited without the explicit permission of the publisher.
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