This paper represents an effort to explain the language development of the child within the analytic frame of overtly observable data and without recourse either to mathematical models or to postulating hypothetical underlying forms. From longitudinal studies of two-year old children conducted by the author as well as from similar data reported in the literature, it appears that the function of repetition in child language is twofold: (1) as a learning device for the retention of items newly acquired through imitation and (2) as a means of easing the process of conveying the message. Improvement of communication is the principle aim of the child's efforts to shape his language to the sociolinguistic pattern of others significant to him. Repetition's function of easing the strain of the message in its bare essentials only fulfills the same purpose that redundancy does in adult language. As a matter of fact, repetition ceases when the child's speech progresses to the point of employing functors as a part of a synthetic construction. (Author/DO)