Bach on Linguistic Universals and Particulars

“Emmon Bach”:http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~ebach/. “Linguistic Universals and Particulars”:http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~ebach/papers/17thling.htm. Preconference version of paper for the 17th International Congress of Linguists in Prague, July, 2003.

bq. Summary. Reflections, retrospective and prospective, about the activities and results of linguistics. Theory and description: methodological desiderata. Linguistic universals and linguistic particulars. Language extinction and the politics and ethics of linguistics. Linguistic creativity at the level of grammar creation and transmission: humans as members of the species homo loquens grammaturgicus.