The present volume is intended to give an overall picture of research in
pro- gress in the field of generative grammar in various parts of
Europe. The term 'generative grammar' must, however, be understood here
rather broadly. What seemed to be an easily definable technical term
several years ago is becoming more and more vague and imprecise.
Research in generative gram- mar is carried on according to rather
diversified methodological principles and being a generative grammarian
is often more a matter of confession than any adherence to the common
line of methodology which can be traced back to the conception of
grammatical description initiated by Noam Chomsky. The direct or
indirect influence of this conception is, however, clearly recog-
nizable in most of the papers of this volume. The most difficult thing
was, naturally enough, to select appropriate papers in the realm of
semantics. Apart from the special trend in generative grammar referred
to as 'generative semantics' (though here, too, we might ponder on what
'generative' really means) the term 'generative' is hardly employed in
semantics. The search for semantic primes, the application of the
methods of mathematical logic, the inquiry into the intricate
relationships between syntax and semantics and the utilization of
syntactic information in semantics are perhaps the most charac- teristic
traits of contemporary semantics. All of this, of course, is at no
variance with the principles of generative grammar, on the contrary,
most of it has been made possible through the achievements of generative
grammar.