Every five years the Permanent International Committee of Linguists (CIPL) organises a world congress for linguists. And every five years theCommittee faces the challenge of presenting a programme at the highest possible level. The CIPL Executive Committee decided for the Congress planned for 2003 in Prague to focus on four major topics which play an important role in today’s linguistic debate: 1. Typology, 2. EndangeredLanguages, 3. Methodology and Linguistics (including fieldwork) and 4.Language and the mind. Leading experts have introduced the four themes in their plenary lectures in the course of the congress, which served as a basis for the articles presented in the current volume. This book should be a welcome tool for all linguists wishing to find their way quickly in current developments. Table of contentsPreface viiEvidentiality: Problems and challenges Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald 1 Towards a less 'syntactic' morphology and a more 'morphological' syntax Stephen R. Anderson 31 Linguistic universals and particular Emmon Bach 47 Language planning and language policies: Issues and prospects Ayo Bamgbose 61 Computational lexicons and corpora: Complementary components in human language technology Nicoletta Calzolari 89 Historical linguistics: The state of the art Lyle Campbell 109 Coherent fieldwork Daniel L. Everett 141 State of the art in Computational Linguistics Giacomo Ferrari 163 State-of-the-art paper: Lexicology and lexicography: Milestones in metalexicography Rufus Gouws 187 Pragmatics: State of the art Robert M. Harnish 207 Phonological dialectics: A short history of generative phonology Harry van der Hulst 217 Types of languages and the simple pattern of the core of language Petr Sgall 243 Attempt at the revival of Warrungu (Australia): Its cultural and scientific significance Tasaku Tsunoda 267 The future of creolistics Kees Versteegh 305 How the study of endangered languages will revolutionize linguistics Douglas Whalen 321