Second, linguistics is basically an empirical, not a speculative or intuitive, discipline in the sense that it examines specific data (e.g. speech and writing), and proceeds by verifiable and justifiable operations. It relies on observation and experiment, and uses formalized principles and a theory capable of formulation. It aims to analyze the data and make generalizations about the regularities encountered in the linguistic phenomena under study.
Third, linguistics obeys the following canons of science : exhaustiveness, consistency and economy. Linguistics deals with all relevant data, i.e., it analyzes all the facts of language that fall within its scope, and studies systematically every linguistic element from all angles. It allows no contradictory statements and requires that all parts of analysis be consistent with the whole. Repetition is not allowed either, and more economic statements containing