Why is it that we don't know in advance what we say but still make sense?

Question

When you have a conversation, people seemingly don't know in advance the words they're going to use, but still they can - well, most of them anyway - construct arguments that make sense and have conversations together. How?

Answer 1

There is a lot more to conversation than the words that we use. Words combine into sentences, it's true, but the conversation itself has structure that we can use to help us follow it. I am a linguist trained in conversation analysis, and I have learned how we are so constrained by the structure of conversation that we feel the need to follow that structure even when it's not necessary. For example, have you ever said "goodbye" to someone on the telephone after they have already hung up? That's because "goodbye" is the normal way to finish a conversation, even though it doesn't make sense in this case. You still want to follow the structural conventions of the conversation.

Actually, the way we construct sentences from our thoughts is still a question that linguists are very interested in. Many people who study syntax (sentence structure) are interested in what we are capable of doing, not what we actually do. So they don't worry too much about when someone forgets a word or something. In other words, we don't know yet.

Answer 2

Sub-consciously we know what we are about to say. However, this is after years of practice when the brain has remembered many phases used before and regurgitates them in an instant. Its a bit like driving a car we change gear manually without thinking much about the action. Not quite the same when we first learn to drive!

Answer 3

this is the reason i'm horrible @ conversations in rl, i think through (practically rehersing) everything im going to say in my head b4 i say it, and then as im saying it i will think like 2 words ahead of what im saying, then i soon realize im not paying attention to what im saying and im thinking way ahead and just end up rambling on about gibberish and trying to double-back to find out what i was saying, this as you can guess gets very annoying, and one of the reasons i dont talk much in rl.

Answer 4

The brain is wonderful at multitasking and thinking very fast.

Answer 5

coz i don't know

actually u have 2 thank ur brains 4 dat mechanism
i'm no neurologist so i can't really explain dat well


hope this answer helps