A paper by Keenan and Klein (1975) provided evidence for the hypothesis that conversationality is present in children as young as 2 and 1/2 years of age. Results of the study indicated that before the emergence of more adult-like coherency operations, the children passed through a period in which such operations were foreshadowed by vocal play. While supporting the possibility that conversationality emerges sooner than heretofore expected, the study reported here takes issue with the implications in the Keenan and Klein report that sound play was the precursor of conversational coherency. It maintains, rather, that non-linguistic coherency and an interaction between linguistic and non-linguistic events in the establishment of coherent exchanges between children pre-dated the establishment of adult-like coversationality. A study is reported which lends initial support to this hypothesis. (Author/AMH)