PSYC 3466 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Linguistic Prescription, Colorless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously, Language Acquisition

• School: Northeastern University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 3466
• Professor: Qatherine Andan

Document Summary

Every speaker of a language follows 1000s of abstract principles that they know, but do not know they know. This knowledge lies outside of their conscious awareness. Native speakers who have acquired their language don"t have to try to follow these rules. Important: this is not the prescriptivist grammar you may have learned about in school. We"re not talking about i before e except after c . We"re talking about the kind of grammar that all of you unconsciously have in your head. I, um, can we, uh would you mind, you know, moving over a bit? . How many is what kind of unicorns can"t they can? . The difference between being a native speaker and someone who is still just learning. Lexicon: a mental dictionary of words and their meanings, as well as the roles they play in grammatical structures. Grammar: the set of unconscious rules, principles, constraints that a native speaker knows about their language.