This course provides a comprehensive overview of the structure of language and the processes that allow us to learn, comprehend, and produce our own language. Topics include the formation of a phonological repertoire, and early lexicon, a morphosyntactic system, and finally, the acquisition of pragmatic competence in childhood. In adulthood, the course reviews theories of lexical access and word production, sentence comprehension and production, types of inferences made in natural discourse, and phonological representation in the adult lexicon. 4 credits, 1st semester