Chomsky's first article appeared in 1953; forty years later, when this book is published, he will barely have reached a normal age of retirement. It would be astonishing if, over these four decades, his views had not changed, even on general topics and even touching matters central to his thought. In the beginning, for example, he believed that the study of meaning was separate from that of grammar, and concerned with the ‘use’ of sentences. Some years later, he thought it obvious that sentences had ‘intrinsic meanings’ that were determined by grammatical rules. At still later stages, that belief was gradually reversed. At no moment, however, have his views changed comprehensively and suddenly. They have changed as the clouds change in the sky, or as the key changes in a classical sonata movement. Nor, in some ways, have they changed entirely. As in a sonata movement, new ideas have often been at once new and a development of perhaps a fragment of what has preceded.

The aim of this chapter is to try and trace the evolution of Chomsky's general ideas. It will be well to acknowledge at the outset that this is not easy, and that any account that might be given, barring the most slavish and unpenetrating chronicle, is liable to seem in part misleading to others who have read his works differently. One reason is that Chomsky's career is not over: his ideas are still developing, and, even if scholars are less eager than before to publish their reactions, anyone with a serious interest in the nature of language must still try to decide for or against them.