Re: To Matt Pearson

At 19:37 25/10/01 -0400, you wrote:

>In a message dated 10/25/01 1:02:14 PM, and_yo@HOTMAIL.COM writes:
>
><< If we assume that language is rule-governed (if not, then there's NO
>predictable link between content and expression - an unlikely hypothesis
>...), and that the human mind is capable of using language (if not, one
>gotta wonder who's writing this ...), doesn't it then follow that the human
>mind at some level has knowledge these rules? >>
>
>     Is there any reason why it has to be one or the other?  Can't it be both?
>  There are rules, sure, but sometimes you don't use them, as with the example
>already pointed out, "Let's go, shall we?"  I think it's an easy phrase to
>understand, but certainly there aren't a system of rules that explain why it
>means exactly what it means.
Now it's always been my understanding that the rules were to allow language
to be transformed into an easily parsable internal form. The grammar would be
used whenever it could and if it couldn't then the brain'd do as well as it
could through the use of an error-correction mechanism. The brain does seem
to be a type of massively parallel pattern matcher and all the theorised
rules are are patterns.

Just my 2c.
K.

--
Keith Gaughan <kmgaughan@...>
http://homepage.eircom.net/~kmgaughan/
I can decide what I give / But it's not up to me / What I get given -=Bjork=-