At this stage, as we have seen, there is no grammar. That is to say, there is no level of linguistic 'from' (syntax,morphology,vocabulary) intermediate between the content and the expression. In stratificational terms, the child has a semology and a phonology but not yet a lexology. Furthermore, the system as a whole owes nothing to the English language (a possible exception being I want my toy bird). The sounds are spontaneous and, in general, unexplained, although two or three are attested as imitations of natural sounds which the child has heard himself make and then put to systematic use. As has already been pointed out, a phonetic alphabet such as the IPA notation is not very appropriate as a means of representing the child's speech sounds at this stage; it is too specific. What is wanted is a system of notation showing generalized postures and prosodic values