This book collects the contributions presented at the international
congress held at the University of Bologna in January 2007, where
leading scholars of different persuasions and interests offered an
up-to-date overview of the current status of the research on linguistic
universals. The papers that make up the volume deal with both
theoretical and empirical issues, and range over various domains,
covering not only morphology and syntax, which were the major focus of
Greenberg's seminal work, but also phonology and semantics, as well as
diachrony and second language acquisition. Diverse perspectives
illustrate and discuss a huge number of phenomena from a wide variety of
languages, not only exploring the way research on universals - tersects
with different subareas of linguistics, but also contributing to the
ongoing debate between functional and formal approaches to explaining
the universals of language. This stimulating reading for scientists,
researchers and postgraduate students in linguistics shows how
different, but not irreconcilable, modes of explanation can complement
each other, both offering fresh insights into the investigation of unity
and diversity in languages, and pointing to exciting areas for future
research. - A fresh and up-to-date survey of the present state of
research on Universals of Language in an international context, with
original contributions from leading specialists in the eld. - First-hand
accounts of substantive ndings and theoretical observations in diff- ent
subareas of linguistics. - Huge number of linguistic phenomena and data
from diffferent languages a- lyzed and discussed in detail.
