Rules vs. lists

[Rob Freeman]

Dear All,

I was glad to find the recent rule vs. list discussion. I like to see
fundamental issues debated.

In line with my own particular interests I hope I can shine a new perspective.

Can anyone tell me, if the utterances of natural language are thought
of primarily as a list, how many ways might the elements of that list
be generalized to abstract one or other rule?

That is to say, how many rules might a list of elements define in
principle? Also how many partial rules, if the requirement of global
generalizability is dropped?

-Rob Freeman