A study of children's language use in narratives given during play examined the longitudinal development of different linguistic systems of narrative structure: pronominal, clausal, and temporal. The narrative and dialogue in play with small toy figures was observed in eight children between the ages of 2 and 7. The findings suggest certain developmental ways in which children aged 3-6 mark different strands of text in their narratives. The data suggest that the play narratives of even very young children may consist of an interplay of many voices representing the different perspectives the speaker assumes toward events. This evidence supports the hypothesis that narrative development involves not only the acquisition of various genres such as scripts, personal accounts, and stories, but also involves the mastery in manipulating strands of text within genres. (MSE)