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Theoretical Linguistics (TL) was established in 1974 by Helmut Schnelle as a platform for the emerging field of theoretical linguistics. The journal aimed to develop, discuss, and analyze theories of language and their applicability. It played a significant role in the cross-fertilization between logic, philosophy of language, and linguistics, particularly in the areas of syntax and semantics. Over time, TL faced challenges from different disciplines and institutional rivalries. In 2002, the journal underwent a format change to foster in-depth discussion and thorough peer review of linguistic contributions. TL is grateful for the support of its editorial board, researchers, and production editors. [Extracted from the article]

2 Syntax, complexity, and the FoL It has long been assumed (starting with [8], [9]) that the Context-Free region of the Chomsky hierarchy provides a lower bound for the complexity of human languages. These models are viable descriptions of the output of the linguistic system - they model the faculty of language by generating the same output that our faculty of language outputs. For linguistics as a cognitive science, our primary goal is the description of the faculty of language (FoL) and an explanation of the common structure observed across human languages. [Extracted from the article]

However, as is well known, OE and OHG also exhibit orders where arguments and adjuncts follow the verb (cf. e.g. [24] for OE, and [1] for OHG). Classifying all these languages as T3 languages highlights their similarities but also neglects the fact that OHG is closer to the present-day Germanic OV-languages than Slavic, and possibly, OE. Evidence in favor of an analysis of OHG as a basic SOV language comes from the placement of elements that generally resist extraposition in OV-languages, quantitative evidence bearing on the distribution of OV and VO orders, and the syntax of auxiliaries/verb clusters. Thus it seems that postverbal placement of object pronouns was not freely available in OHG, which casts doubt upon the claim that OHG was characterized by a mixed OV/VO grammar similar to OE ( I pace i [12]; [31]; and H & S). [Extracted from the article]

The primary motivation for my target paper ("General linguistics must be based on universals") was a perceived need for greater clarity in general linguistics. This implies that descriptive (or p-) linguistics is explanatory and thus theoretical, and again Zaefferer is not happy with this terminology: He prefers to say that only g-linguistics is "purely theoretical", though he grants that p-linguistics "can be theory-laden". 11 Social grammars and mental grammars By "language-particular theoretical linguistics", I mean both the description of mental grammars (internal knowledge systems) and the description of sets of social conventions ("social grammars"). [Extracted from the article]

In the field of contemporary typology and general linguistics, I consider Martin Haspelmath (henceforth H) as one of the most knowledgeable, interesting and productive scholars in Germany. In order to make progress in practicing normal linguistic science (or in his terms to solve the general linguistics paradox) H describes three research strategies: (a) studying nonconventional constraints on human language, (b) doing comparative investigations of the world's languages, and (c) searching for the building blocks, seen as natural kinds, all languages are based on. And his postulate that no "linguist can simply pretend that the description of a particular language will automatically contribute to general linguistics" (p. 27) is simply untenable: even if the description is about a single language, it I does i automatically contribute to general linguistics by adding about 0.015% to the size of its enumerative descriptive subfield. [Extracted from the article]

This paper highlights the importance of the distinction between general linguistics (the study of Human Language) and particular linguistics (the study of individual languages), which is often neglected. The term "theoretical linguistics" is often used as if it entailed general claims. But I note that (unless one studies non-conventional aspects of language, e.g. reaction times in psycholinguistics) one must study universals if one wants to make general claims. These universals can be of the Greenbergian type, based on grammatical descriptions of the speakers' social conventions, or they can be based on the natural-kinds programme, where linguists try to describe mental grammars as made up of universal building blocks of an innate grammar blueprint. The natural-kinds programme is incompatible with Chomsky's claims about Darwin's Problem, but it is indispensable for a general linguistics in the generative tradition. The Greenbergian programme, by contrast, can make use of framework-free descriptions because its comparisons are based on independently defined universal yardsticks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his target article entitled "General linguistics must be based on universals (or nonconventional aspects of language)" Martin Haspelmath (MH henceforth) raises a number of methodological issues that have been at the center of his research agenda and of linguistic debate for several years now. What I wrote is "This, I think, is the key difference between generative grammar and other linguistic enterprises, such as typology: while typologists assume that, say, the existence of I wh i -movement in English cannot tell us anything about Chinese, generativists assume that this isn't true" ([11]: 10). The generalization is that most Italo-Romance varieties (with the possible exception of Italian) have something in common, namely some extra features (not as obvious as it appears to non-Romance scholars, as Italo-Romance is rather different from one another). In his attempt to classify the different methodologies and to establish common terminology, MH declares that every approach to the study of languages is theoretical, because "theory-free linguistics is not possible". [Extracted from the article]

Also, it helps clarify what we expect our theories and models to achieve in terms of data fit: In general linguistics, we expect theories and models to capture something about the general nature of language. In important respects the two enterprises are heavily intertwined: Language-particular findings can generate hypotheses about the general nature of language (e.g. the discovery of free affix order in one language led to a learning-based hypothesis why most avoid it: [19]), and general linguistics obviously depends on samples of language-particular analyses. In his target article "General linguistics must be based on universals (or nonconventional aspects of language)", Martin Haspelmath invites us to reconsider the distinction between general linguistics and the linguistics of a particular language. But all these choices matter regardless of whether a metalanguage is used for describing a particular language or for measuring differences within or between languages. [Extracted from the article]

I don't think that this is the only way to do linguistics, I don't think that it should have any particular priority, epistemologically or sociologically, over other ways to do linguistics, but I do think that it is an important approach and that we can learn much about FL/L by pursuing it. 3 On the "theoretical" in theoretical linguistics It will be clear from the discussion in the last section that I have a very different view of what theoretical linguistics is from that in GLU. I do have some quibbles about GLU's terminological proposal, that generative grammar is a "Natural Kinds Programme", mainly because I think the terminology is inexact. Haspelmath's 2021 target paper, I General linguistics must be based on universals (or nonconventional aspects of language) i (which I'll abbreviate here as GLU) seeks to address the question of how linguistics should deal with what he sees as a paradox at the heart of the enterprise, his General Linguistics Paradox in (1). [Extracted from the article]

Our target article (henceforth W&B) proposed a diachronic connection between a structural property of grammars and particular sociohistorical situations: all else being equal, we predict that in sociohistorical situations in which adult L2 learners are particularly dominant quantitatively or qualitatively, uninterpretable features will typically be lost. W&B outlines a research programme rather than a full-fledged knockdown argument, and we thank Biberauer, van Gelderen and Yanovich for reading it in the spirit it was intended and raising important issues in their commentaries. W&B's prediction is then not that definite articles should be vulnerable in extensive L2-acquisition contact scenarios, but rather that definite articles I which Agree i (as reflected overtly, for instance, in number or gender) should be vulnerable in such scenarios. The diametric opposition is only apparent, though: van Gelderen argues ([22]: 22-26) that her Feature Economy is at play in child language acquisition, whereas the Interpretability Hypothesis as adopted by W&B is intended to characterize adult L2 acquisition. [Extracted from the article]

Walkden and Breitbarth (henceforth: I W&B i ) outline an innovative research programme which, among other things, aims to probe the notion of syntactic complexity by approaching it from a socio-linguistically informed second-language (L2) perspective. W&B (p. 185) state that they, "adopt the Fundamental Difference Hypothesis (FDH) of [15]" in terms of which L2 acquisition is assumed to be fundamentally different to L1 acquisition: whereas L1 acquisition is UG-mediated, the FDH assumption is that "whatever we learn after the period of normal first-language acquisition, we learn in a different way" ([2]: 209, as cited by W&B I ibid i .). If we assume abstract Case to be parameterisable, following [21], the same concern arises about the apparent loss of this phenomenon as that which we have already discussed in relation to bipartite negation and null subjects: will it really be the case that loss of overtly manifest abstract Case marking reflects a reduction in uninterpretable features? For the "smaller" Case phenomena - inherent and lexical Case - the situation may be different as it is conceivable that the loss of these Case types could turn on the loss of a (potentially quite specialised) I pair i of interpretable and uninterpretable features, i.e. that both instantiations of the feature are lost from the grammar. [Extracted from the article]

Cournane's "A developmental view on incrementation in language change" outlines a model of child-driven variation and change, which highlights the significance of an overgeneralisation and retraction pattern observed in child language acquisition. The MMM model specifically highlights the acquisition- and grammar-shaping significance of a bias to maximally utilise minimal resources that is also evident in domains beyond syntax and language structure more generally. If the MMM model is on the right track, the patterns of overgeneralisation and retraction predicted by both models ultimately follow from the way a general-cognitive rather than UG-specific consideration - MMM - regulates the acquirer's UG-mediated systematicisation of the input. [Extracted from the article]