Fundamental universals of language

In response to familiar problems with work on universals, it is proposed that there are genuine and exceptionless linguistic universals, but that they are derived not from data about the properties of individual languages but rather from more basic facts about non-linguistic mechanisms involved in language production, comprehension, and acquisition. The proposal is illustrated with the help of two phenomena, one involving the distribution of voiced stops in phonology and the other pertaining to constraints on filler-gap dependencies in syntax.