[This prologue is a short, one-act play for reader and author]

reader [groaning in protest]: Oh no, not another book on Transformational Grammar! I've never done any grammar before: will I be able to follow it?

author: Of course you will! I've aimed the book at the absolute beginner who's not done any Syntax before.

reader: What's the general aim of the book?

author: To get beginners to the point where they can understand some of the ideas and issues debated in current work on Transformational Syntax such as Chomsky's Knowledge of Language, or Barriers. I've deliberately set out to de-bug the text of the unnecessary technical jargon which plagues so much of the literature in the field. In that respect it's like my earlier Transformational Syntax book. But this isn't a second edition of that: the two are very different.

reader: Different how?

author: There are three main differences – theoretical, descriptive, and pedagogical. From a theoretical viewpoint, this book is much more up to date than the earlier one, and so uses a more recent framework, which takes into account major works published since 1981 (e.g. Chomsky's Barriers monograph). At a descriptive level, the present book has a greater data coverage than its predecessor – i.e. it discusses a wider range of constructions and rules.