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heir own speech . . . children use this grasp to help them figure out what we're trying to tell them, even when they don't know all the words we've uttered" (107). Therefore, although a child might have a vocabulary of only fifty words, he or she may be able to comprehend communication on a much higher level. The child maintains a level of "mental grammar" that, according to Jackendoff, may be completely unconscious (20).

Similarly, deaf people maintain a form of mental grammar

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