The selection of papers reprinted here traces the development of syntax from structural linguistics through transformational linguistics to operator gram mar. These three are not opposing views or independent assumptions about language. Rather, they are successive stages of investigation into the word combinations which constitue the sentences of a language in contrast to those which do not. Throughout, the goal has been to find the systemati cities of these combinations, and then to obtain each sentence in a uniform way from its parts. In structural analysis, the parts were words (simple or...

To the philosopher, the logician, and the linguist, questions have a special fascination. The two main views of language, that it describes the world, and that it expresses thought, are not directly applicable to questions. Ques tions are not assertions. A question may be apt, sharp, to the point, impor tant, or it may be inappropriate, ambiguous, awkward, irrelevant or irreverent. But it cannot be true or false. It does not have a truth value not just because an utterance like Was the letter long? does not indicate which letter is being talked about. The indicative The letter was not long...