Early 19th century synchronic grammar was of cardinal significance for the development of traditional syntax. In the work done by scholars associated with the Frankfurtischer Gelehrtenverein für deutsche Sprache (Frankfurt Society for Scholarly Research into the German Language) a first attempt was undertaken to provide a systematic description of the content side of syntactic structures. The present volume examines the book "Syntax of the German Language" (1830/32) by Simon Heinrich Adolf Herling, alongside K.F. Becker one of the most important exponents of synchronic grammar in the first half of the 19th century. With specific reference to Herling's categories for the simple sentence, the study provides a systematic description of Herling's logical semantic classification of syntactic structures and discusses it critically against the background of contemporary linguistics and more recent work done on the problems of categorization.