optimality in synchrony and diachrony

[Noel Rude]

Howdy!

        Don't really know what the folks are trying to say so maybe I should
keep quiet, but then again--am I right that most of us believe that
structure codes function, and that if function shapes grammaticalization
then this structure-function relationship begins synchronically and
persists until bleached out and/or changed?

        I thought we believed

        1) in structure which includes segmantal sequences and prosodies and
affixation and word order all of which is subject to various
psycho-physical constraints, and which codes

        2) simple and complex information

        3) according to various principles (propositional structure and
semantics and discourse/pragmatics and social stuff ...) which may or
may not be related to structure iconically and which may be either
"internal" or "external" (whatever this might mean) to Grammar or
grannars and

        4) which in practice is physically/psychically automated (or
routinized) and

        5) that anywhere along the line any rules (or "principles and
parameters") which CAN be broken WILL be broken (we are not automatons
and the rules are not the laws of physics).

        If we mostly agree on this, how far are we from mopping up the details?

        Noel