According to the Stanford/Elsevier Top 2% of World Scientists analysis of the Scopus database, he is the most influential scholar in language and linguistics. see Ioannidis, John P.A. (2022), “September 2022 data-update for "Updated science-wide author databases of standardized citation indicators"”, Elsevier Data Repository, V5, doi: 10.17632/btchxktzyw.5