This volume is concerned with aspects of word meaning within the general methodological framework of generative grammar. Its aim is to diagnose linguists' failure to advance satisfactory theories of lexical meaning, then to propose the requirements that such a theory should meet and, drawing on work in philosophy and psychology, to take the first steps toward satisfying these requirements. The author argues that despite the objections of some philsophers, a scientifically respectable theory of word meaning is possible.