The paper presents a set of linguistic phenomena illustrative of the notion "universal tendency". Linguistic generalizations are regarded here not as isolated, "true-or-false" propositions but as embedded in a hierarchy of competing forces. An "exception" to a universal is thus seen as the result of the prevalence of another conflicting universal tendency. Examples discussed are taken from Latvian child language, Bengali word order, and from the characteristics of the copula in a number of languages, particularly Bengali and Amharic. (Author)