In the present volume, the author deals with the relation between the Prague School and what he calls Empirical Functionalism, the kind of functionalism pursued by linguists such as T. Givón, Bernard Comrie, William Croft, Joan Bybee or Martin Haspelmath. He attempts to demonstrate what the empirical functionalists do not seem to know about the Prague School, what from the Prague School could be useful for their work and also, on the other hand, what from the empirical functionalists' work could be useful for the Prague linguists.