ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates how creativity would be possible if rules were absent. It argues that during the telegraphic period, knowledge should never be more than a composite mapping, whose transformational subscripts are few in number and non-categorial in nature. The pinpointing of grammar as part of human knowledge motivated many psychologists to join linguists in the quest for specification. During the telegraphic period, there would be no transformations at the mapping stage, and only partial serial order. The crucial point about the changes during the telegraphic period is that they should alter the content of the knowledge possessed by children learning English and increase its communicative power but they should not affect its form. Accepting what amount to two opposing forces, the extent of overgeneralisation will depend on the time that adult usage takes to predict relative to the time that the context-free rules take to emerge.
