This paper surveys some issues that arise in the study of the syntax and semantics of natural languages (NL's) and have potential relevance to the automatic recognition, parsing, and translation of NL's. An attempt is made to take into account the fact that parsing is scarcely ever thought about with reference to syntax alone; semantic ulterior motives always underly the assignment of a syntactic structure to a sentence. First I consider the state of the art with respect to arguments about the language-theoretic complexity of NL's: whether NL's are regular sets, deterministic CFL's, CFL's, or whatever. .
