Delimitación de conceptos lingüísticos. Definición y descripción de la finalidad

Résumé

This work represents an attempt to emphasize the problem that terminological or conceptual vagueness causes for linguistic studies, mainly in relation with the operations of definition and description. The distinction between definition and description is fundamental for linguists, but not everyone takes it into consideration. Descriptive grammar must not study the universal definition of concepts, but it needs to use them as previous base to identify correctly its extension and to describe the characteristics of the respective elements in several languages.Based on the problem of a clear concept called ‘purpose’ in linguistic studies, we intend to suggest the following: on one hand, we intend to demonstrate a series of basic guidelines to study ‘purpose’ as linguistic universal; on the other hand, we try to apply them to the elements that belong to it in a specific language, in this case, spanish language.