load in thesame domain? Can these stages be identified with discretelevelsof structure in theformal theory? To what
extent can these stages be temporally distinguished in the course of processing and/or spatially distinguished by brain
imaging? To what extent can they be differentially disrupted by brain damage? It seems to me that this more nuanced
viewpoint leaves unaffected all the standard issues in processing; perhaps it can spare us continuation of some of the
needless debate of the pastfifteen years.
This surveyoftherelationbetweenthecompetenceand performancemodelshas ofcoursebeenexceedinglysketchy. I
have mainly tried to show how the parallel architecture, supplemented by a robust notion of working memory, lends
itself quite naturally to addressing processing issues. With luck this can lead to a refinement in framing questions for
both linguistic theory and psycholinguistics—and for more fully cooperative enterprises.