This volume contains papers on general linguistics written by Hungarian scholars. The term 'general linguistics' is not easy to define. Is a paper on Hungarian at the same time a study in general linguistics? Certainly not. But it could be considered so if it contained some general conclusions concerning the structure of language. In general, a study in general linguistics should tell us something novel about the structure of language. Evidently, then, my primary concern has been to select papers which contain, beyond the descriptive aspect, some general linguistic insights as well. Of course, various linguistic schools may require different degrees of explicitness. This is true of Hungarian linguistics as well. It should not be surprising then that the general linguistic aspects are not always made fully explicit in the papers of the present volume.