Frederick J. Newmeyer is the author of four books on syntactic theory and the history of linguistics. He has recently completed a 5-year term as Secretary-Treasurer of the Linguistic Society of America and is currently Associate Editor of the journal Natural Language and Linguistic Theory. He has taught at the University of Washington, Seattle, since 1969.

• 1 Introduction Part I General trends 2 Bloomfield, Jakobson, Chomsky, and the roots of generative grammar 3 The structure of the field of linguistics and its consequences for women 4 Has there been a ‘Chomskyan revolution’ in linguistics? 5 Rules and principles in the historical development of generative syntax 6 Chomsky’s 1962 programme for linguistics: A retrospective 7 Linguistic diversity and universal grammar: Forty years of dynamic tension within generative grammar Part II The linguistic wars 8 The steps to generative semantics 9 The end of generative semantics 10 Review of Geoffrey J.Huck and John A.Goldsmith, Ideology and Linguistic Theory: Noam Chomsky and the Deep Structure Debates 11 Review of The Best of CLS: A Selection of Out-of-Print Papers from 1968 to 1975 Part III Grammatical theory and second language learning 12 The ontogenesis of the field of second language learning research 13 The current convergence in linguistic theory: Some implications for second language acquisition research 14 Competence vs. performance; theoretical vs. applied: The development and interplay of two dichotomies in modern linguistics