In studying music, ethnomusicologists must deal, at least peripherally, with song texts. This linguistic form is known to show differences from normal speech, as does poetry. The purpose of Professor Durbin's article is to indicate the models of these three phenomena-normal speech, poetry, and song text-in terms of a single method of model-making. For this purpose, she has used the transformational model. Since her consideration of these differences is of importance to ethnomusicology, yet is stated in terms unfamiliar to many of our readers, a short explanation of transformational theory is given. The basic goal of the transformational model is to account for the knowledge of a language possessed by an ideal native speaker, and to generate the infinite number of grammatically acceptable sentences possible in any language. It is concerned not with performance, but with competence-the underlying system which produces particular sentences and larger structures. Transformational theory accounts for two components: 1) deep structure; and 2) surface structure. The deep structure is the mechanics underlying the entire language. It may be compared with the elements which constitute a musical style. It also represents similarities to certain aspects of what musicologists call form. The deep structure is not necessarily verbalized by speakers of a language. (The same is true of style in music.) Rather, it is the totality of aspects, the underlying grid which serves as a first filter in processing and organizing raw sound into the final production of language. This final production is the surface structure. It is the physical sound generated by the deep structure. If the deep structure is correctly stated, the surface structure will consist of the infinite set of proper, grammatical sentences possible in the language in question. In writing a transformational grammar, two separate kinds of statements are made. The statement of the deep structure, called the base, is the progressive unfolding of general to more specific descriptions of underlying structure. Thus, in a grammar which is concerned with sentence structure, the first statement might be S(sentence) -> (is to be rewritten) NP + VP (noun phrase plus verb phrase). Following statements would indicate the composition of NP and VP, after which the composition of each element would be