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This paper takes issue with the idea of language as a ‘serial-time structure’ as opposed to the ‘real-time event’ of speech, an idea entrenched in Chomskyan model of linguistic theory. The discussion centers around the leitmotif question: Is language constructed entirely from a finite set of apriori discrete symbol types, as the ‘competence vs performance’ dichotomy implies? A set of linguistic patterns examined in this study, largely with regard to phonological considerations, points to the evidence to the contrary. That is, while the patterns may be said to be linguistically distinct, they are not discretely different, i.e. not different enough to be reliably differentiated. It is demonstrated that much of current research in phonology, including the most recent Optimality Theory, is misdirected in that it falsely presupposes a discrete universal phonetic inventory. The main thrust of the present study is that there is no sharp boundary between ‘competence’ defined as the formal, symbolic, discrete time domain of language and human cognition on the one hand and ‘performance’ as the continuous, fuzzy, real-time domain of human physiology on the other.