Language universals: Abstract but not mythological

Behavioral and Brain Sciences 32 (5):448-449 (2009)
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Abstract

I present the so-called Verb-Object Constraint as a serious proposal for a true linguistic universal. It provides an example of the kind of abstraction in linguistic analysis that seems warranted, of how different languages can confirm such a universal in different ways, and why approaches that avoid all abstractness miss important linguistic generalizations.

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