ABSTRACT
Chapters3to8haveexaminedthemostimportant,indeed indispensable,conceptsinlinguisticanalysis:thedifferencebetween constituentstructureandtransformationalstructure,thebasic syntacticfunctions,thedesignofaschemeoflexicalcategories;the developmentofabstractsyntacticframes-structuredphrasemarkers-toaccommodateboththesemanticcontentofpropositions andtheinformationwhich'orientates'sentencesinrelationtothe non-linguisticworld;thepresentationofdictionaryentries,andthe useofdictionaryentriesrelativetosyntax;theroleoftransformationalrulesininserting,deletingandamalgamatingmorphemes andfeaturesonthebasisofanabstract,simple,pre-transformational sub-structure.Ihavepresentedthisinformationinsuchawaythat thereaderhasbeenshownhowtoconstructderivations.Aswehave seen,'derivation'isanimportantconceptinlinguistictheory.Butof moreimmediateimportanceisitspractical,analytic,function:itis thedevicebywhichoneassignsastructuraldescriptiontoareal sentence.AderivationisaroutebetweenSandsomegrammatical sentenceofL;followingthatroute,oneinvokescertainrulesina certainorder.Iftherulesarecorrectlystated,theprocessofderivationshowsthatwearedealingwithasentenceofL,andaparticular sentenceofL;weareabletorelatethatsentencetoSandtoLina principledway.
