So I'm deep into writing this book and keep getting mired in it. One is that I'm interrupted a lot and I really have to be directed to get through it. Another is that it has a lot of tangents and reasons I can't stay on that singular path to where it's going.
Where it's going is about where I am: proving that what we say is not controlled by a mysterious genetic template determining what is grammatically possible and what is not, but rather controlled by systematically keeping track of the normal or usual ways of saying things, and using those ways whenever one is determined to be understood.
The next chapters are really about internal and external controls. Chomsky believed in internal controls - that certain ways of saying things were "restricted" or we didn't "have access to them." I believe that there are no internal restrictions, and that we have access to every way of saying things. We even have access to unusual ways of saying things, like other languages or pig latin. But we don't use them because most of the time we just want to be understood and we want to make sure that people understand exactly what we mean and nothing more. That last part is actually quite important.
Then one chapter is about comparison to traffic and specifically about how control of traffic is somewhat like attempted coontrol of language. We can make rules, we can put police out on the road, and it influences behavior, but it doesn't control behavior. People will still drive too fast if their wife is in the passenger seat having a baby. No genetic control makes us drive on the right or even on the left, or anywhere, we just decide it's easier to follow the law than make everyone honk and swerve as they come toward us.
In other words, it's our decision every step of the way.
I write this book often late at night. That's when I can count on maybe a half hour of uninterrupted time when i'm awake and aware. People know I don't answer my phone after ten. I like to walk then too but this has become slightly more important. i'm 72 and have to write what I was put here to write. More later.
