Witty repartée

Behold: the essence of conversation.

Not the words, of course. But the mechanics are all here.

Conversations have orderly patterns that provide the structure.

• You have to have turn taking; if two people speak at once, they can’t hear each other.
• There’s elaboration; one person puts something on the table, and the other person expands on it.
• And we can also see a communicative goal: these boys are getting a lot of enjoyment from their conversational play.

It’s a little surprising that people have this ability at such a young age. But maybe it shouldn’t be. Language is, after all, one of those things humans are good at doing.