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As I mentioned elsewhere, I've been reviewing some studies of the evolution of language for the new ESem on (biological, cultural, individual) evolution that Paul and I will be teaching this fall. The special issue of Science (303, 5662: February 27, 2004) on Evolution of Language includes an essay by David Graddol on "The Future of Language" which has some interesting suggestions about re-thinking the notion that grammar constitutes a formal (and fully accountable) system:

"No one has ever successfully produced a comprehensive and accurate grammar of any language. In the words of the early 20th-century anthropological linguist, Edward Sapir, "all grammars leak"...It seems that much of what we have expected of grammars can be better explained by focusing on words and the complex way in which they keep each other's company. Some words tend to be used as the subject rather than object of a clause, others may typically appear in prepositional phrases. The human brain is able to store experience of how words pattern, what kinds of text they appear in, what kinds of rhetorical structure will follow them. This is the new science of collocation and colligation that illuminates how texts work."

I love that phrase about the wyas in which words "keep each other's company"--it invokes for me the sort of friendly adjustment that happens when we hang out w/ one another: there is a range of possible behaviors, but no rules. It's more capacious (leaky?) than a formal system might allow.