This study describes some aspects of the emergence of displaced reference (talking about topics other than those in the immediate context) in conversations between a child and her parents. The data consisted of tape recorded interaction with the child between 17 and 36 months. During this period, speech about the here and now always dominated, but certain other topics emerged in a systematic way. For example, around 22 months, the child and her parents began to talk about family members who were not present. Somewhat later, a frequent topic was the previous events of the day. By the end of the period studied, the child answered questions about past events and non-present objects readily, though it was rare for her to introduce such topics into the conversation. Examples are given to illustrate the types of displaced reference used and the difficulties that sometimes arose when the topic was not in the here and now. It is suggested that the parents and child used several conversational strategies that helped to make early displaced reference successful. (Author)