Data is data and model: You don't discard the data that doesn't fit your model

This article focuses on the article published by Frederick Newmeyer in a recent issue of the journal "Language." Newmeyer said that, "if real speech, the argument goes, is not propositional, then grammars should not be either." In fact, this is Newmeyer's interpretation of the findings of Du Bois 1987 and other work he cites in the section. One do not know who might have made an explicit claim to such an effect, and Newmeyer refers vaguely to some linguists; the other studies cited in this section also do not make such a claim. One do think this is a very interesting hypothesis provided by research on actual language use and one to which future research efforts might profitably be directed. It cannot be emphasized enough, however, that one needs to be careful in such an endeavor. That is, even though the statistical findings Du Bois presents look very interesting, they first need to be replicated a number of times before one can feel sufficiently sure that they are robust patterns upon which one can build our theories of human language.