esoteric and highly formalized rules

[PAMELA PRICE KLEBAUM]

  The "esoteric" was from the previous correspondence.  How can you
describe how to form a question out of "The man who is calling is
yelling" without formalized rules?

        PPK


On Wed, 16 Apr 1997, Sydney M Lamb wrote:

> On Tue, 15 Apr 1997, PAMELA PRICE KLEBAUM wrote:
>
> >         One of the core questions linguistics asks is, how do we acquire
> > our first language?  Describing that undertaking entails modeling
> > languages, which entails "esoteric and highly formalized" rules. This is b)
> > below.. [ref to message from Enrique Figueroa E.]
>
> An interesting assumption -- that modeling languages entails "esoteric
> and highly formalized rules".  Why do some people make this assumption?
> Is there any evidence for it?  (I don't think so.)  (We do have evidence
> that "highly formalized rules" provide ONE means of describing OUTPUTS of
> linguistic systems.)
>
> Cheers,
>        --- Syd
>