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Preview of Chapter Themes
 Language can be understood as having a
hierarchical structure, with phonemes put
together to form morphemes, these put
together to form words, and these put together
to form sentences.
At each level, we can endlessly combine and
recombine units, but the combinations seem to
be governed by rules of various sorts, so that
some combinations of elements are rare; others
seem prohibited outright.
A different set of principles describes how
people interpret the sentences they hear or
read; in this interpretation, people are guided by
many factors, including syntax, semantics, and
contextual information.
In interpreting sentences, people seem to use a
"compile as you go" strategy, trying to figure out
the role of each word the moment it arrives. This
approach is often efficient, but it can lead to error.
Our extraordinary skill in using language is
made possible in part by the fact that large
portions of the brain are specialized for
language use, making it clear that we are, in a
literal sense, a "linguistic species."
Finally, language surely influences our thoughts,
but in an indirect fashion: Language is one of
many ways to draw our attention to this or that
aspect of the environment. This obviously shapes
our experience, which in turn shapes our
cognition.
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