This paper reviews some of the observations made by Vygotsky about the structure and content of inner speech and its precursor egocentric speech, also called private speech. Recent advances in certain areas of linguistics are used to clarify and develop these observations. In particular, the paper focuses on Vygotsky's ideas about the predicative structure of private and inner speech. It is observed that Vygotsky consistently analyzed predicativity in private and inner speech by using notions similar to those used in functional linguistics, and that he recognized the difference between grammatical subject and predicate and psychological subject and predicate. A further distinction was made by Vygotsky between pscyhological subject and psychological predicate. This distinction is compared at length with the distinction made by Chafe between given and new information in social speech. A new version of Chafe's definitions of given and new information is proposed to be applicable to private speech rather than social speech. The developmental hierarchy of private speech suggested by Kohlberg and others is discussed. An analysis is made of the surface form of the private speech of two 2-year-olds who were assembling a puzzle. It is concluded that: (1) private speech has a given-new information organization based on what is already present and what is introduced into the child's consciousness, and (2) this organization is based on the child's action. (SB)