Fifty years after the publication of Skinner's "Verbal Behavior", some possibilities for the future of Skinner's "science of verbal behavior" are considered. Specifically, certain areas of development or advancement are examined which might be of special importance to the expansion and influence of the functional analysis of verbal behavior. One critical task for the influence of the field, for example, involves the removal of an obstacle; namely, the remarkably persistent and wholly inappropriate influence of Chomsky's polemic of 1959. Strategies for neutralizing this influence are explored. In looking at the future advancement of the field, a case is offered for broadening the domain of verbal behavior research to include a variety of complex verbal phenomena. Skinner's original work and more recent systematic treatments provide an important framework for the analysis of verbal behavior, but there is still room for, and a need for inductively oriented, empirically based research programs that transcend specific interpretive or theoretical treatments. Such program under the guidance of the practices of radical behaviorism and effective behavior-analytic methodology, might provide additional lines of development and progress for the analysis of verbal behavior.