Linguistic Leaps and Binds

Maybe I'm just projecting my thoughts, because I've been reading a book (The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature) by 'noted' Psychologist/Linguist Steven Pinker, but Lily seems to have taken off verbally the last few days.   Where most of her spoken words, up to this point, have been wholly functional - bottle, eat, move, up, etc - the vocabulary seems to have been growing in spurts lately.   You can now ask her arbitrary questions, such as 'what is your baby's name?' and get an answer.    It can be out of left field, but it's definitely in the ballpark (it sounds like it could be a name), rapid (hinting that she might have thought about it prior to being asked), and surprisingly consistent (meaning she answers the same throughout the day).

For example, the response to that question was originally a word that sounded like 'rob-rob'.  The morphemes were distinctively different than anything else I have heard her say.  I guessed a few words that she might be saying, but it was never 'confirmed'.   The next day she was asked the same question by Cindy ('what is the baby's name?') and responded much more clearly that the baby's name was in fact - 'yellow'.    This was confirmed.

The ability to communicate seems to have alleviated some (not all) of the frustration she has when she doesn't get her 'way'.   We always attributed her little tantrums to an inability to communicate back to us, and the decrease in tantrums appears, at least on the surface, to be related to increased ability to vocalize thoughts.    I could see where the inability to vocalize things would be frustrating, especially given the gap between what she understands and what she can relay back to us.  Just from how she reacts to conversation, it's very clearly she understands a great deal more than she can verbalize.   An example is how she'll race down the hall to find nail clippers if I mention that her nails need to be clipped - even if I make no visual cue to her fingers.   There are numerous examples like that.

I am going to make it a point to ask her to say more words in the coming days.    We typically go through picture books to have her identify 'flowers' or 'butterflies' already, but it would probably be good to drive activities that prompt her to vocalize more often.