Noun and Verb in Universal Grammar

Abstract

A recent article, The importance of language universals, raises a problem that is fundamental to all linguistic science, and is of particular relevance at the present time in the light of current developments in linguistic method. The authors refer to the importance of studying those features of culture that are found to be universal in human society, one of which is language itself. They then suggest (and this is a topic that requires some elaboration) that linguistics and the study of languages will be benefited by an investigation of ‘universals of language’, features of human language exhibited everywhere, in all speech communities. They proceed to suggest and enumerate such universals in the fields of phonology, grammar, and semantics.