ABSTRACT
Linguists have long argued over what the main goal of linguistics should be. Should a grammar describe language in formal terms, where such terms need not refer to psychological entities, or should a grammar describe what speakers know about a language, where all terms refer to psychological entities? We shall provide a brief history of that controversy, and then, given the desirability of the latter goal for psychology, we shall assess the psychological adequacy of grammars. Towards this end we shall also take into account the nature of child language acquisition, particularly the relation of speech comprehension and speech production. By applying such criteria we shall then be in a position to judge the psychological adequacy of current grammars and to offer an alternative if need be.
