 Cognitive linguists break with advocates of Chomskian generative grammar, denying that the terms on which words intelligibly combine are set by brute hard-wired principles of universal grammar embodied in a special purpose language module. Instead, the terms on which words meaningfully combine are a direct reflection of the terms on which certain strategies for conceiving concrete situations, strategies the words serve to signal and evoke, can be successfully coordinated with one another. They break with advocates of a Fodorian language of thought, denying that conceiving or thinking is a matter of manipulating sentence-like discursive mental representations in accord with syntactically stated, truth preserving inferential rules. Instead, conceiving is a matter of manipulating unconscious mental imagery so as to let concretely pictured physical objects and situations stand in for the more abstract objects and situations we’re endeavoring to understand.