Johanna Rubba raises an important point about how we are to understand
the nature of
language.  Let me cite the relevant part of her post.  After citing a
number of people,
Johanna observes:

> . . . . .  The work of these scholars
> proposes all kinds of reasons for why 'the rules are as they are'. These
> aren't 'formal' theories, that is, theories that propose abstract
> formulae for representing syntactic structures; rather, they attempt to
> tie facts about language to cognitive psychology, human thought and
> consciousness.

We need to be very careful about making sweeping claims about the nature
of language from
one aspect of our linguistic knowledge.  It may be the case that
language is not a unique aspect of
our mental capacities and that grammar is the result of "cognitive
psychology, human thought, and/or
consciousness."   I recommend Pinker's Words and Rules in which he
proposes for something as mundane as past tense verbs we need both
abstract rules and some general cognitive capacity to form associations.

Once we get to syntax, it is unclear to me how we can avoid proposing
"abstract formulae for representing structure."  Let me give an example
from a recent book by Chomsky.  In sentence (1), herself clearly refers
to Mary.

1) Mary wants to feed herself.

However, in (2), herself can not refer to Mary even though (2) contains
the exact same string of words as (1).

2) I wonder who Mary wants to feed herself.

I can explain why herself can't refer to Mary in (2) by proposing an
abstract structure which shows how (2) differs from (1).  I have no idea
what non-linguistic part of human cognitive capacity, thought processes
or conscious explains the different antecedents of herself in (1) and
(2).

Bob Yates, Central Missouri State University

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