ABSTRACT
Parsons defined chapter 4 as one of the two “theoretical key chapters of the book” (Parsons 1978k). It is not surprising that the chapter has been revised many times. The first structure of the chapter was designed during 1972, after Parsons had finished the first draft of the first version of chapters 1-3 (Parsons 1972a). A first draft of the whole chapter was ready by the beginning of 1973 (Parsons 1973b), and it was again fully revised two years later (Parsons 1975b). The chapter, like most of the text, was further revised and largely rewritten after the spring of 1977, when Parsons returned, after a long interval, to work on the project. The present version had apparently been written before the spring of 1978 (Lidz 1978) and subsequently modified with handwritten and typewritten inserts. Parsons, however, did not consider the chapter as being “in its final form” (Parsons 1978h): the present version had been sent to several friends and colleagues asking for comments, and quite a few had replied with criticisms and suggestions that Parsons planned to answer during a never-carried-out final revision.
