Why grammatical theory is so damn hard

[sacundim]

It's all the insanely fine distinctions one has to make in order to get the seemingly simplest-looking stuff right. Like, say, the distinction between so-called "present participles" and "gerunds" in English:

• The next showing of the movie is at 8 PM. (Participle)
• The enemy destroying the city was an unexpected development. (Gerund)

What must one

Comments

[muckefuck]

I mean, English speakers do not go around with all these abstract grammatical concepts in their minds, applying them with the precision of a linguist to work out the right way to say things.

Really? How do we know this?

[muckefuck]

My point is that until we can observe the processing of language in the brain directly, we can't make any definite statements about how speakers apply generalisations to form utterances, can we? It might be hubris to argue that the abstractions we have developed to model observed behaviour have concrete existence within people's heads, but it seems equally misguided to argue that speakers make no use of abstract concepts at all. You agree that they are inferring rules from examples--well, what forms do you think those rules take, how are they stored, and--most importantly--what do you base this knowledge on?