Here together for the first time are all of Frederick J. Newmeyer's writings on the origins and development of generative grammar. Spanning a period of fifteen years, the essays in Generative Linguistics address the nature of the "Chomskyan Revolution", the deep structure debates of the 1970s, The Chicago Linguistic Society, the structure of the field of linguistics and its consequences for women and the attempts to apply generative theory to second language acquisition.

These articles, many never before published, still inevitably fan the flames of controversy. Newmeyer's audacious conclusions and his argument that generative semantics collapsed because it was empirically disproved challenge much current thinking. Generative Linguistics provide a challenging reappraisal of the "Chomskian Revolution".