I just don't know what the words mean anymore.

The Carnie reading explained many aspects of linguistic syntax, that is how sentences are structured and how we "subconsciously get from sounds to meaning." Carnie describes the rules of some types of grammar but makes the bold claim that much of our subconscious knowledge of knowledge is acquired or innate, not explicitly learned as conscious knowledge is. He describes a Universal Grammar, which is an innate human ability to acquire language and use it intuitively, subconsciously. Carnie also described parts of speech across all Language, focusing on context dependency. For instance, nouns appear in "noun positions" and take "noun suffixes", which is the reason that we can identify nouns (and any other part of speech) in a sentence we don't completely understand or something completely gibberish, like the Lewis Carroll poem "Jabberwocky".

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Just after I finished the reading, I went to Wilbur brunch and, while waiting in a massive line, overheard two students next to me conversing in Mandarin Chinese (my native language). When people here ask me if I speak Chinese, I always respond with the most hesitant head-nod-shoulder-shrug you could imagine. Mandarin was my first language, but time (and English) has weathered away the details of vocabulary, how to puzzle together one specific thought into syllables that roll off the tongue as easily as if I had never deserted the language. The problem wasn't that I couldn't piece together the grammar properly; rather, I just don't know what the words mean anymore. I have retained the so-called "intuition" for understanding the language, which is why I hesitate to completely deny that I "speak" Chinese. I still understand the context dependencies of different parts of speech, the natural places where parts of speech occur, where to insert connectives, where the modifiers go in relation to the noun or verb they are modifying, and how not to sound "American", or like someone who has been speaking and thinking in English for the past thirteen years. This intuitive knowledge is not something I've ever consciously had to learn (in the native language setting), and because it is not conscious knowledge, it is something that I have never lost. Carnie's book provided the technical background behind this phenomenon I have been experiencing for the past decade: understanding language structure at the level of a child but never truly comprehending.