Margaret Speas'"Phrase Structure in Natural Language" is reviewed. It presents three recent innovations in phrase structure research that offer new tools to explain data and solve old problems: the VP-internal subject hypothesis, the layered VP hypothesis, and the articulated IP hypothesis. (Contains 19 references.) (LB)

Reflections on Tobin's "Semiotics and Linguistics" and Shaumyan's "Semiotic Theory of Language" are offered. (23 references) (LB)

Monik Charette's "Condition on Phonological Government" is reviewed. It is the first book-length study written in the framework of Government Phonology (GP), a theory that makes a dramatic break with the classical generative approaches to phonology. (Contains 10 references.) (LB)

Agrees with King's (1994) scenario of language emerging over a continuum with each step requiring an adaptive motivation. The article explores the major themes in King's work, including information donation and acquisition, gesture and information transmission, the evolution of social information transfer, the beginnings of language, and…

Maintains that language as humans now produce and comprehend evolved from languagelike precursors in the communication systems of nonhuman primates. The article reviews "Gesture and the Nature of Language" (GNL) (1995) and notes that GNL derives syntax incrementally without diluting it to an element not recognizable as a property of language. (37…