I'm not denying the existence of competence--I spent part of my post
saying what my favorite theory's version of competence is. What I'm
putting in doubt is the competence/performance _distinction_, and how
data gets allocated to competence vs. performance if all language use,
including grammaticality judgments, is performance. The only way we can
get at competence is through performance. So how do we draw a line
between the two? Is competence the brain in a non-language-using state?

As to 'Here is the dog that my dog is bigger than ___.' This does
conform to patterns of English, and we all know where the gap is. Any
pattern can have a gap; gaps are defined by patterns. No pattern, no
gap, because there is no expected but missing element.

I think what functionalists object to about comp/perf is the tendency
for generative linguists to dismiss any data they either weren't
interested in or that didn't fit their hypotheses as performance, and to
discount performance as needing to be accounted for in linguistic
theory. Several very famous generative linguists used performance data,
namely speech errors, to make conclusions about competence.

I don't think any sensible person would deny that we have some kind of
knowledge base of the patterns of our language. We can call that
competence if we like, but again, how  clean is the border with
performance, and when/where do we account for performance?


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Johanna Rubba   Associate Professor, Linguistics
English Department, California Polytechnic State University
One Grand Avenue  • San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
Tel. (805)-756-2184  •  Fax: (805)-756-6374 • Dept. Phone.  756-2596
• E-mail: [log in to unmask] •  Home page: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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