This section explains the twofold perspective in the description of a language system and presents for both perspectives a language-independent system that may be applied to any language.

These two systems are instantiated in

González Campos, Guillermo & Lehmann, Christian 2027, The Cabecar language. Berlin & New York: de Gruyter Brill (Trends in Linguistics, Documentation, 49).

The table of contents of this book is used for illustration on some pages. At the lower levels of its subdivision, the phenomena under description are proper to this language.