The author raises the question of how to relate modern transformational grammars to a body of empirical fact, and suggests why paraphrasing might legitimately be considered a feature of behavior relevant to linguistic competence. This study is introduced by a discussion of the empirical basis of descriptive linguistics, followed by sections…

Rebuts an article that claimed to overthrow the authors' 1969 findings. It is demonstrated that the original study concerned syntactic organization and that interpretation of it as bearing on comprehension is largely unjustified. Comments on their prior work in light of new developments in child language are included. (EJS)

Within the realm of psycholinguistics there is a need to investigate linguistic performance based on the generative transformational concept of linguistic competence, i.e., based on the speaker-listener's knowledge of his language. Psycholinguistics must determine how underlying knowledge is related to overt performance. The nominalization and…