ABSTRACT
Neither the Generative grammarians nor the ‘natural grammarians’ have been primarily concerned with meaning. However, the Generative grammarians have had high ambitions as regards producing a total theory of language under the Generative banner. And obviously, a total theory of language must find a place for semantics as well as syntax. Unfortunately, semantics under the Generative banner has been limited by the domination of the syntactical model in Generative thinking. Semantics has been expected to fit in around an existing machinery constructed primarily in the interests of syntax. The general attitude is perhaps summed up in Katz and Fodor’s famous motto: ‘linguistic description minus grammar equals semantics’.52 Such an attitude does not bode favourably: and the outcome has not been favourable. Or perhaps one should say ‘outcomes’, given the sheer variety of approaches proposed over the past thirty years. In the present chapter, I shall be looking at some of those approaches in approximate chronological order.
