Response to Dan Everett

[Matthew S Dryer]

In response to my comment
"> My claim is that there is very little if any
> description using current or recent formal theoretical frameworks that
is
> of value to functional linguists."
Dan Everett says:
"But surely there are important insights that people
of all persuasions have received or could gain from paying careful
attention to Joan Bresnan's work, for example."

Nothing in my statement says that there may not be important insights in
formal work.  My claim was in response to Edith Moravcsik's assertion that
functionalists DEPEND on formalists for their explananda, for their
description of forms.  Something can be a valuable insight without
providing explananda (things to be explained) to functionalists that they
could not do without.

Consider, for example, the (now old) insight of LFG that a variety of
phenomena that were described in tranformational grammar by means of
transformations can be (and should be) described in terms of lexical
rules.  I see this as an insight that is of clear potential value to
functionalists.  But I don't see that it provided anything new for
functionalists to explain.

Matthew Dryer