Becoming linguistic

Abstract This chapter introduces the question of how a newborn human goes from being one of the least competent creatures on the planet to becoming a linguistically sophisticated individual who can converse with adults in just a few years. That is, how does the child come to know a language? Possible first-pass answers to this question—imitation, trial and error—are considered and rejected in favor of a division of labor between innate internal (mental) structure and environmental stimulation. The chapter also addresses a prerequisite question: What does it mean to know a language in the first place? With this in mind, the idea of a mental grammar—a computational symbol system that generates all, and only, the possible sentences of a language—is introduced and clarified.