What best describes the syntactic spurt?

• A. A rapid increase in the number of syntactic types (unique sentence structures) parallel to semantic growth
• B. A sudden plateau in vocabulary growth
• C. A gradual decrease in morpheme usage
• D. A shift to nonverbal communication

Answer: (B)

The main idea here is that the syntactic spurt refers to a rapid expansion in how a child can put sentences together. As a child’s understanding of meaning grows, they gain more ideas to express, and their ability to assemble those ideas into diverse sentence structures explodes. So the best description is a quick rise in the number of distinct syntactic types—the variety of sentence patterns they can produce—occurring alongside semantic growth.

The other ideas don’t fit this pattern: a plateau in vocabulary growth would mean words aren’t increasing, which isn’t about a burst in syntax; a gradual drop in morpheme usage doesn’t reflect the typical developmental trajectory of increasing linguistic complexity; and a shift to nonverbal communication moves away from spoken language entirely, not a change in syntax.