Wierzbicka, Anna (1992). Lexical universals and universals of grammar. In Michel Kefer, & Johan van der Auwera (Eds.), Meaning and grammar: Cross-linguistic perspectives (pp. 383-415). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
In a sense, everything we say in this chapter is problematic, since in the approach sketched here the hypothetical “universal grammar” is a function of the hypothetical “universal lexicon” , and since this hypothetical “universal lexicon” is still in a state of flux, the grammar developed here is doubly hypothetical, and it must remain for some time in a state of “super-flux”.
Nonetheless, it is important, I believe, that strong substantive hypotheses of the kind put forward here should be formulated, because they give a direction to empirical investigations, which can be expected to lead, in turn, to the necessary revisions of the hypotheses themselves.
