Everyone, left to his own devices, forms an idea about what goes on in language which is very far from the truth.

It is useful to the historian, among others, to be able to see the commonest forms of different phenomena, whether phonetic, morphological or other, and how language lives, carries on and changes over time.

Whitney wanted to eradicate the idea that in the case of a language we are dealing with a natural faculty; in fact, social institutions stand opposed to natural institutions.

A language presupposes that all the individual users possess the organs.

The very special place that a language occupies among institutions is undeniable, but there is much more to be said-, a comparison would tend rather to bring out the differences.

Henceforth, language studies were no longer directed merely towards correcting grammar.