Standard criticisms of unjustified grammaticality assignments in generative syntax are easily countered by reminders that grammaticality is a different notion from acceptability. In response, the criticisms are reformulated here in a way that interprets unjustified assignments as possible evidence of the predictive failure of current generative…

Riemer (2009) complains that a large number of sentences, despite appearing to be acceptable to many native speakers of English--including himself--are treated as ungrammatical in recent works that subscribe to the generative approach to (the English) language. In his opinion, this need not be considered "as evidence of an overly narrow…

A discussion of Roman Jakobson's view that grammatical meaning is distinct from lexical meaning is presented. (HP)

A survey of linguistic history to demonstrate the linguistic basis of logical and mathematical formalism is presented. (HP)

Some sociolinguistic considerations must enter directly into a complete generative grammatical analysis of Yoruba. Using Katz's conventional approach to grammatical description wherein syntax and semantics are separate would exclude a group of possible sentences. (POP)

Paper delivered as a Forum Lecture at the 1970 Linguistic Institute at Ohio State University. (DS)