Newmeyer's (1998) book Language Form and Language Function has stirred up another round of discussion of the dichotomy of
Formal Linguistics and Functional Linguistics. It is well grounded for Newmeyer (1998) to identify a formal theory of language vs. a functional theory of language in terms of the autonomy of syntax, autonomy of knowledge and autonomy of grammar. But it seems that he fails to integrate his evaluation of the formal approach into the object of inquiry of formal linguistics. The formalism in a formal theory like Chomsky's generative grammar is very much like that in the pure science of math and logic, which comes out as a formal axiomatic tool from the "science-forming capacity" with which the empirically inaccessible objects or phenomena in nature can be explained. The notions and algorithms in an axiom are not subject to any empirical justification in the first place. Just as there is nothing empirical out there capable of proving the truth of the constant 6.670, 10-11, the operation of x and the square symbol 2 in the equation G=6.670 x 10-11 N-m2/kg2, we cannot expect to find any psychologically and /or physiologically real entities for the realization of those entities such as DP, CP and those operations such as c-command, the ECP and the Head-Movement Constraint. However premature as a pure science the formal linguistics may be, it is an attempt to invent a theoretical tool specially designed for the understanding of the faculty of language located in the human brain/mind, which are beyond the available formal systems in science. Representational formalism is not necessarily qualified as methodological formalism. The distinctive features of a formal linguistic theory lie in the integration of its epistemological foundation, object of inquiry and methodology. The dichotomy of formal linguistics and functional linguistics has been a popular belief among some of the Chinese linguists. But it is not quite all right for them to say formal linguistics studies language form whereas functional linguistics studies language function since they miss the opposing epistemological foundations and different objects of inquiry of the two schools of thought.