Chapter 6 presents an overview of the organization of the mental grammar. We will focus on general architectural properties of the mental grammar, that is, the units and rules that every grammar must have to capture the sound form, meaning, and syntactic structure of words and sentences. I will suggest that the grammar functions like a checking device in that it tells the language user whether linguistic expressions are well-formed (i.e., grammatical, in accordance with the rules of grammar). There is some technical detail (and many linguistic terms), but at the very least the reader will be left with the conviction that languages are quite complex. It is explained how languages allow people to express any thought they might have, drawing attention to the pivotal notion of recursivity. This chapter sets the stage for being amazed that children have pretty much full control of their language by the age of 4. By learning what a mental grammar might look like, the reader can form an idea of what it is that the child needs to acquire. Without such information, it would be difficult to discuss the role of nature and nurture in language.

Chapter 4 introduces the phonetics and phonology of Korean. In this realm as well, Korean is frequently cited as an unusual example of a language with a three-way distinction among obstruents without a contrast in voicing. In recent years this property has attracted renewed attention, as the aspiration contrast appears to be giving way to a prosodic or tonal distinction. Korean is thus a rare example of an intensively studied, major world language undergoing the process of tonogenesis. Korean is also notable for its processes of consonant cluster reduction, which give rise to a striking difference between underlying and surface forms in many environments. Finally, many dialects of Korean have lexical pitch accent. We discuss the differences between these varieties and the prosody of standard Korean.