Linguists have standardly assumed that grammar is about identifying all and only the 'good' sentences of a language, which implies that there must be other, 'bad' sentences - but in practice most linguists know that it is hard to pin those down. The standard assumption is no more than an assumption. A century ago, grammarians did not think about their subject that way, and our book shows that the older idea was right: linguists can and should dispense with the concept 'starred sentence'. We draw on corpus data in order to support a different model of grammar, in which individuals refine positive grammatical habits to greater or lesser extents in diverse and unpredictable directions, but nothing is ever ruled out. Languages are not merely alternative methods of verbalizing universal logical forms. We use empirical evidence to shed light on the routes by which school-age children gradually expand their battery of grammatical resources, which turn out to be sometimes counter-intuitive. Our rejection of the 'starred sentence' concept has attracted considerable discussion, and we summarize the reactions and respond to our critics. The contrasting models of grammar described in this book entail contrasting pictures of human nature; our closing chapter shows that grammatical theory is not value-neutral but has an ethical dimension.

Grammar is said to be about defining all and only the 'good' sentences of a language, implying that there are other, 'bad' sentences - but it is hard to pin those down. A century ago, grammarians did not think that way, and they were right: linguists can and should dispense with 'starred sentences'. Corpus data support a different model: individuals develop positive grammatical habits of growing refinement, but nothing is ever ruled out. The contrasting models entail contrasting pictures of human nature; our final chapter shows that grammatical theory is not value-neutral but has an ethical dimension.--Résumé de l'éditeur.

He then assesses the status of judgments as reliable indicators of a speaker's grammar.

At the outset, the goal of generative grammar was the explication of an intuitive concept grammaticality (Chomsky 1957:13). But psychological goals have become primary, referred to as “linguistic competence”, “language faculty”, or, more recently, “I-language”. Kac argues for the validity of the earlier goal of grammaticality and for a specific view of the relationship between the abstract, nonpsychological study of grammar and the investigation of the language faculty. The method of the book involves a formalization of traditional grammar, with emphasis on etiological analysis, that is, providing a “diagnosis” for any ungrammatical string of the type of ungrammaticality involved. Part I justifies this view and makes the logical foundations of etiological analysis explicit. Part II applies the theory to a diverse body of typically generativist data, among which are aspects of the English complement system and some problematic phenomena in coordinate structures. The volume includes pedagogical exercises and especially intriguing is a large analysis problem, originally constructed by Gerlad Sanders using data from Nama Hottentot, which exposes the reader to a syntax of extraordinary beauty.

Newmeyer persuasively defends the controversial theory of transformational generative grammar. Grammatical Theory is for every linguist, philosopher, or psychologist who is skeptical of generative grammar and wants to learn more about it. Newmeyer's formidable scholarship raises the level of debate on transformational generative grammar. He stresses the central importance of an autonomous formal grammar, discusses the limitations of "discourse-based" approaches to syntax, cites support for generativist theory in recent research, and clarifies misunderstood concepts associated with generative grammar.