Of course, this is a common belief among some functional linguists.

Johanna Rubba wrote:

> 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.

This is a myth, at least when it pertains to Chomsky.  I do not have the Chomsky's
(1986) Knowledge of Language nor the Managua Lectures at the location I am posting
this.

Newmeyer (1994) in "Chomsky on Form and Function" in the Journal of Linguistics
notes:

Finally, it is worth pointing out that Chomsky has repeatedly stressed in recent
work that the question `how is knowledge of language put to use' is one of the
three basic questions of linguistics, standing alongside the questions `What
constitutes knowledge of language' and `How is knowledge of language acquired.'

Newmeyer cites page 3 in Chomsky's Knowledge of Language, page 3 in Language and
Problems of Knowledge: the Managua lectures," and a paper in Krasher (1991) The
Chomskyan Turn.

It is always possible that some generative linguists dismiss performance as not
needing to be accounted for in linguist theory, but one of them is not Chomsky.

Bob Yates, Central Missouri State University

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