a rule for tense but instead serves as a storage bin for the list of irregular verbs and
their associated past-tense forms.
This model seems overly complex, and it also appears to be incongruent with
the idea that the grammar submodules are innate and governed by universal
grammar. We should be able to predict that such submodules have built-in provi-
sions for handling irregular verbs, which occur in just about every language.
An important characteristic of rule-driven systems is that they consistently
produce correct output. They are deterministic, so after a rule is in place there is
no reason to expect an error. The rule necessarily must produce the same result
each time. The process is similar to a game like basketball: There is a rule that
stipulates that when a player makes a basket outside the three-point line his or
her team gets three points. As long as a player makes a basket outside this line,
the result is always the same. But we just don’t find this situation in language.
People produce frequent errors in speech and writing, which suggests that,
whatever mechanisms are responsible for generating sentences, they in fact do
not produce correct output consistently.^3
The Association Model
Cognitive grammar simplifies the logical problems associated with acquisition
by rejecting the rule-governed model of mind and language, replacing it with an
association model based on the work in cognitive science by Rumelhart and
McClelland (1986) and others working inconnectionism(also see Searle, 1992).
Rejecting the rule-governed model of mind offers significant advantages.
Neural Connections. Cognitive science research has suggested that the
process of induction associated with formalist models of acquisition does not
correctly describe what happens as children acquire language. One of the prob-
lems is that the competence-performance distinction does not really tell us
much about the nature of errors in language. More broadly, these models do not
seem congruent with what neuroscience has discovered about how the mind ac-
tually works.
The association model of acquisition that emerged out of connectionism is
easy to understand. Connectionism describes learning in terms ofneural net-
works. These networks are physiological structures in the brain that are com-
COGNITIVE GRAMMAR 209
(^3) Many people assume that frequent errors appear in writing rather than speech. Close observation,
however, shows that speech is typically more prone to errors than writing. The difference is that speech
occurs so rapidly that most of us are not able to detect the errors; writing, on the other hand, lends itself to
close examination, which quickly reveals even the smallest error. Also, when listening to language, we
focus nearly all of our attention on meaning and message, whereas when reading—especially student pa-
pers—we give significant attention to form.