It is not uncommon in science that following a period of turbulent growth, a skeptical mood builds up and doubts begin to be expressed as to the rationale of progress achieved and the extent to which the position reached coincides with the original goals. This kind of discomfort is felt today by linguists and their close companions, the psycholinguists. Despite its growing intensity, this discomfort is not readily verbalizable. Still, we will try to characterize it tentatively with a few angry assertions, each of which taken separately is perhaps untenable in its extreme form, but which...