ABSTRACT
This chapter is about natural languages, their structure, and their grammars. The concentration is entirely on syntax (the structure of sentences, clauses, and phrases), setting aside phonology (sound structure) and morphology (word structure), as well as issues of semantics and pragmatics. We consider a class of grammars that encompasses almost all current research in syntax, point out two rather deep conceptual problems for grammars of that sort, and sketch the out’ lines of some recent work that promises a resolution of these problems.
