Categorial grammar analyzes linguistic syntax and semantics in terms of type theory and lambda calculus. A major attraction of this approach is its unifying power, as its basic function/argument structures occur across the foundations of mathematics, language and computation. This paper considers, in a light example-based manner, where this elegant logical paradigm stands when confronted with the wear and tear of reality. Starting from a brief history of the Lambek tradition since the 1980s, we discuss three main issues: (a) the fit of the lambda calculus engine to characteristic semantic structures in natural language, (b) the coexistence of the original type-theoretic and more recent modal interpretations of categorial logics, and (c) the place of categorial grammars in the complex total architecture of natural language, which involves - amongst others - mixtures of interpretation and inference.

Categorial grammars are driven by substructural logics. These are fragments of modal logics for the structures the grammar deals with. We will discuss modal language as a means of access to families of relevant structures: formal languages, type hierarchies, relation algebras--arrow models, and vector spaces. This is the cross-roads of our title, where open directions abound.