<P> Colorless green ideas sleep furiously is a sentence composed by Noam Chomsky in his 1957 book Syntactic Structures as an example of a sentence that is grammatically correct , but semantically nonsensical . The sentence was originally used in his 1955 thesis `` Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory '' and in his 1956 paper `` Three Models for the Description of Language '' . Although the sentence is grammatically correct , no obvious understandable meaning can be derived from it , and thus it demonstrates the distinction between syntax and semantics . As an example of a category mistake , it was used to show the inadequacy of the then - popular probabilistic models of grammar , and the need for more structured models . </P>
<P> Colorless green ideas sleep furiously is a sentence composed by Noam Chomsky in his 1957 book Syntactic Structures as an example of a sentence that is grammatically correct , but semantically nonsensical . The sentence was originally used in his 1955 thesis `` Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory '' and in his 1956 paper `` Three Models for the Description of Language '' . Although the sentence is grammatically correct , no obvious understandable meaning can be derived from it , and thus it demonstrates the distinction between syntax and semantics . As an example of a category mistake , it was used to show the inadequacy of the then - popular probabilistic models of grammar , and the need for more structured models . </P>
what does the sentence colorless green ideas sleep furiously illustrate
what does the sentence colorless green ideas sleep furiously illustrate
an example of a sentence that is grammatically correct , but semantically nonsensical
an example of a sentence that is grammatically correct , but semantically nonsensical