This volume presents a collection of 23 papers by renowned linguists on current research in the field of theoretical linguistics. The book focusses on linguistic theory and metatheory, and on fundamental concepts and assumptions of modern linguistics. The following articles are included in the volume: A Formal Approach to a General Theory of Language; Understanding Understanding; Non-reducible Grammatical Relations without Semantic Content; Are Linguistic Objects Internal, External, or Both?; Some Thoughts on Being Minimal; Case Morphology and Case System in L1 Acquisition; Explorations in 'Idiolects'; Phonological Word Structures; Idiolect and Convention: Incompatible Concepts?; Communion or Communication?; Topic-Focus Articulation - A Matter of Langue or Parole?; Phraseologie und Metonymik; Language Universals and Evolutionary Bottlenecks; speech Intentions, Speech Planning, and the Use of Syntactic Constructions; English Verbal Idioms of Aural Perception; Semantics and Grammar: A Relationship of Mutual Foundations?; The Problem of 'Adjectives' in Mandarin Chinese; Beyond New Structuralism; Wann hat eine Sprache begonnen?; Zur universalen Dimension der Identifikation; Series of Explicata for the Notion of Meaning; Iconicity and Syncretism; Remarks on Language Theory in the "Decade of the Brain".