Mental Grammar
Posted on May 1, 2013
Mental Grammar
MENTAL GRAMMAR
1. The definition of mental grammar
Mental grammar is the grammar that human has in mind
Mental grammar is important for psycholinguistic, since language is considered as a psychological product, which deals with human’s mind.
2. Chomsky’s competence and performance distinction
Competence is the knowledge that people have of the grammar of their language
Competence is considered the same as mental grammar
According to Chomsky, it is the goal of linguistics to describe this competence
According to Chomsky, psycholinguistics has two major goals: (1) to specify how people use competence so that they are able to produce and understand sentences: and (2) to specify how people acquire competence (grammatical knowledge)
Performance is the activities in producing and understanding sentences.
Competence is just a part of performance. In other word, mental grammar is just a part in producing and understanding sentences.
3. Chomsky’s grammatical conception
Syntax of the grammar is considered primary, with meaning and sound being secondary.
The relationship among grammar (syntax), meaning, and sound can be imaged below: