ABSTRACT
Legislative texts are often difficult to understand, for various reasons. Most important is the fact that the very function of such texts imposes specific limitations on their organisation and formulation. They have to be structured in small units, articles and paragraphs, which can be connected by overt linguistic means only to a limited degree. Moreover, legal texts may consist only of normative statements, for example, they are not allowed or allowed only to a very limited degree to contain purely informative additions, such as commentaries, explanations, metalinguistic remarks, or instruments commonly used in ordinary language to make texts more understandable. And finally, legal statements must be abstract and general, whereas easy understanding is helped by citing specific examples.
