It is based on the lectures Chomsky gave at the GLOW conference and workshop held at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Italy, in 1979.

If the grammar can systematically and accurately describe the adult speaker's linguistic competence, it is called descriptively adequate.

In Government and Binding theory, Chomsky is interested in the initial state of linguistic competence in a child, which is called a human's biological endowment for language.

Further revisions and technical innovations such as introduction of "empty categories", "X-bar theory", "D- and S-structures", and conditions on representations such as "Case filter", etc.

Lectures on Government and Binding contains the next step in Chomskyan linguistic thought where Universal Grammar and the investigation of its characteristics assume central importance.