rules guido vanden wyngaerd 3357 must break longish silence caused urgent jobs since nyman nt seem begin understand problem let expand question find speakers observe violate whisland constraint find form yesno questions recourse hierarchical structure rather linear precedence e unfailingly produce 1a rather 1b 1 man tall _ _ room b man _ _ tall room must admit dullwittedness sorry also agree real issue involved speakers proceeded basis inductive generalisation analogy principle one would expect less random distribution 1a 1b acquisition stage quod non would less random distribution 1a 1b expectable acquisition stage speakers unfailingly pattern children base inductive generalizations produce 1a hence speakers possess certain knowledge follow certian rules one would like know get knowledge suggesting chomskyan tacit knowledge might think rules grow people minds like biological organs question one tell rules speakers follow whisland rule yesno question formation rule grules lrules conviction come speakers follow whisland rule rule formulated named grammarian clearly theoretical generalization grule notice phenomenon captured insular terms principle amenable different theoretical formulation e g dick hudson word grammar _ english _ word _ grammar _ oxford 1990 dependencybased approach 1b would ruled fact infringes adjacency principle confused gb adjacency grammatically correct say 2a man tall room would grammatically incorrect nonsensical say 2b man tall room terminology 2a b technically rulesentences exemplify witness existence corresponding norm language lrule typical norms may violated mistake joke cf alexis manaster ramer 3371 posting _ man _ _ putatively possible np sometimes also force order bring home theoretical point e g 1b lrules normsof language qua institutional cultural facts typically learned acquired experience norms deeply rooted human nature violation less unnatural requires extra effort one basic tenets stampean natural phonology unless mistaken example anyone standing two hands instead two legs cocktail party would certainly violate norm socially correct behaviour case twoleg constraint almost vacuously norm would hard violate vein lrule 2a exemplification almost vacuously norm linguistic professional could violate producing 2b norm nonetheless merit making distinction distinction meta descriptive generative grammarians actual practice martti nyman dept general linguistics univ helsinki finland