Johanna,
  I think these distinctions are very important, so I'll rephrase the
essence of my position incorporating your distinctions.

   Minimalist approaches seem based on a belief that we can coax intuitive
uses of punctuation without much conscious metalanguage or conscious
attention. As far as I know, no one has ever been able to denonstrate
that in practice. One problem is that we seem to continue to insist on
"correctness" in reference to rules that are syntactically based and
syntactically described. We don't seem ready or willing to relax those
rules, at least for important public and academic discourse. This puts
us in the situation of asking students to conform to rules that are not
explicitly stated, or which are explicitly stated only in a language we
have not prepared them to understand.
   The alternative would be to deepen their understanding of these
conventions and them leave them free to amend those practices in
thoughtful ways.
   Since the punctuation system itself is highly functional, I don't think
we are about to cast it out. But when students can write functionally
in part because they break or amend or stretch these guidlines, then we
need to be responsive to that. There are arbitrary aspects to the
system, but it is essentially a functional system, not merely a
"correct" one. These are tools, and best learned in terms of what they
can help the writer accomplish.

Craig
   I think it's natural for us to evolve a metalanguage to talk about
language, and that parents do that all the time when they tell their
children they can't talk to grandma that way or even to stop lying or
be honest or apologize, and so on.

I don't have much time these days to follow or contribute to
> discussions. Browsing through this thread this evening, though, I
> came across a problem that I am seeing more and more often:
> misunderstanding of the term "innate". I feel this is an important
> technical term that those in our field should not use overly broadly.
> The difference between innate and acquired knowledge is too important
> where language is concerned.
>
> "Innate" means "hardwired"; it indicates behaviors and abilities that
> are part of our genetic endowment. They are things we are programmed
> to know/do, and can't help doing if all other conditions are equal.
>
> This contrasts with intuitive, acquired, or learned knowledge and
> abilities. These are achieved by instruction or practice or "figuring
> it out". "Intuitive" is usually used as a term that indicates
> knowledge that rests below the level of conscious awareness. We have
> acquired or learned it, but we do not apply it consciously. It works
> automatically, without the need for us to attend to what we are
> doing. Riding a bicycle becomes intuitive once we master the
> necessary balance and control, but it is not innate. We use innate
> abilities of balance, muscle control, vision, etc. to negotiate this
> artificial practice. Consciously applied knowledge is both learned
> and applied with conscious attention. This is the case with learning
> "about" language -- learning terms for part of speech, learning names
> and skills for identifying sentence elements, etc. The line between
> conscious and intuitive knowledge blurs for well-trained grammarians.
> Sometimes I have to think about which punctuation mark is needed in a
> given spot; most of the time, I just put in what feels right (like
> the semicolon and comma in this sentence).
>
> Where language and punctuation are concerned, this is an important
> difference. Although linguists and other scholars of the mind argue
> about exactly how language is innate -- whether there are brain parts
> devoted exclusively to language, or language is acquired using
> generalized cognitive abilities, or whether it is some mix of the two
> (which I believe at the moment, but for some time it will remain an
> unsettled question) -- I doubt that anyone could claim that humans
> are not born to acquire language.
>
> Whatever this "bioprogram" is, it is general: exposure to any
> language will trigger it in infants and toddlers. In other words, we
> are born ready for _any_ language, not  French, Zulu, Guarani, or
> Laotian.
>
> Knowledge of punctuation could not possibly be innate. Punctuation is
> part of written language, which arose very late in the history of our
> species (about 5,000 years ago and more recently), in just a few
> places (East Asia, Sumeria, and the Yucatan Peninsula). As one or two
> people have pointed out, not all writing systems use any punctuation.
> This is certainly true of early writing systems.
>
> Knowledge of punctuation can become intuitive. It does so for those
> people (like me and Edgar Schuster's grandchildren) who just "absorb"
> it from generous reading. (In my case, grammar instruction was mixed
> in.) It seems to me that my students have intuitive knowledge of
> punctuation; it just happens not to conform to the current formal
> rules (which have changed significantly since just a century or so
> ago. It was quite common for there to be commas after long subjects
> in writing up to the mid-19th C. or later). If this were not true,
> their mistakes would not follow such consistent patterns -- e.g.,
> putting a comma after a long (and sometimes now even short) sentence
> subject phrase; using semicolons to introduce a list; putting a comma
> after "such as,"  comma splices; fragments, and so on. They use what
> should be dashes in appropriate places, only they are hyphens, not
> dashes, and the spacing around them is wrong -- they tend to use a
> space on just one side of the hyphen, instead of one on each side or
> none at all. They use periods correctly most of the time, but tend to
> use question marks incorrectly when a question is inside another
> sentence (e.g., "We should wonder why so many children are not able
> to read at grade level?")
>
> They usually use commas either on both sides or one side of a title
> no matter whether it is needed or not ("Toni Morrison's novel,
> Beloved is justifiably famous" -- "Toni Morrison's novel, Beloved, is
> justifiably famous" -- "Toni Morrison's novel Beloved is justifiably
> famous". The second is appropriate if other authors and novels are
> being discussed; the last if we are picking out one vs. other novels
> of Morrison's or are making first mention of any novel. The first is
> never correct (at least it would be a real chore to create a context
> that would make it correct). My students most always use commas in
> these cases when they aren't needed, or they use only one.
>
> I doubt that they are thinking consciously about every single
> punctuation mark they use. Even if they are, they must be using some
> kind of "feeling" to judge whether the usage is right or wrong.
> Punctuation errors aren't random. Where there is a pattern, there is
> a system. When the system operates without much conscious awareness,
> intuition is involved.
>
> But the intuitive knowledge is not innate. We have innate abilities
> to see print and to use our hands precisely enough to write, type,
> etc. (though writing activities are not innate; they are invented
> technology). If innate abilities are involved in punctuation, they
> are indirectly involved, coming from whatever innate system governs
> things like breath groups and meaning chunks (which become structure
> chunks in language).
>
> Dr. Johanna Rubba, Ph. D.
> Associate Professor, Linguistics
> Linguistics Minor Advisor
> English Dept.
> Cal Poly State University San Luis Obispo
> San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
> Ofc. tel. : 805-756-2184
> Dept. tel.: 805-756-2596
> Dept. fax: 805-756-6374
> E-mail: [log in to unmask]
> URL: cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
>
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