Text linguistics seems to have originated chiefly in order to expand the search for constraints, which was being noticeably impeded by the self-imposed restrictions in a 'linguistics' centered on isolated, invented sentences and abstract formalisms. Yet early attempts to bring the 'text' into the scope of such a linguistics now seem inverted: for us the actual text, not the invented sentence, must be the essential linguistic unit, and is sustained by internal systemic organization and by its external systemic organization within one or more 'intertexts', In this new millennium, this prospect can now finally be documented and clarified by working with very large corpora of authentic texts, whereby we can hope to uncover some of the vital and delicate missing links between 'language' and 'text'.