No abstract

The theory of parts-of-speech is both one of the most fundamental issues of any syntactic description or any syntactic theory, and one of the trickiest for anyone defending a cross-linguistic, comparative approach (Haspelmath 2001: 16538). A first major question, common to languagespecific and cross-linguistic research, is whether parts-of-speech are essentially word-classes or functional classes. Directly pertaining to this matter is the question of the polycategoriality and/or polyfunctionality of items that seem to belong to several classes. Depending on the positions adopted in this debate, the respective relevance of semantic, syntactic and morphological criteria needs to be considered differently. From a cross-linguistic perspective, syntactic and above all morphological tests are put into jeopardy even more directly. As a result the degree of languagespecific variation, the extent of flexibility required in classifications and the respective role of functional and formal criteria are still major issues for any theory of parts-of-speech.

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The current Covid-19 pandemic, and before that, the environmental crisis due to climate change, raise major questions about the relationship between science and society. More than ever, public opinions in OCDE countries question the legitimacy of scientists and scientific knowledge. The reasons for this fracture are obviously multiple and complex, but we believe that applying neoliberalism principles to research has contributed to it. In this article, we show how the funding of research by private institutions, staff precariousness, the ‘publish or perish’ policy have changed the way in which scientific knowledge is produced and decreased the confidence of citizens regarding scientific output. We believe it is high time to launch a wide debate on these issues within the scientific community. We should take advantage of both the climate and the health crises to put fundamental scientific issues and the role of scientists in society back on the table, so that science as a social activity (production and diffusion) is taken back into the hands of scientists in public institutions where conflicts with private interests are limited.