Prescriptive discourse, which favors certain variants over others, like "different from" vs. "different than," has usually been characterized in terms of correctness in spelling, punctuation, word meaning, or grammar. Yet usage guides in the 20th century have added numerous entries that focus more on style considerations than…

This article offers a descriptive account of seven interjections, "eish", "yho", "tjo", "sho", "hayi", "hau", and "mxm", which are adopted from different local South African languages into South African English. It investigates the frequencies, orthography, syntactic position,…

Kurtop is a Tibeto-Burman language spoken by approximately 15,000 people in Northeastern Bhutan. This dissertation is the first descriptive grammar of the language, based on extensive fieldwork and community-driven language documentation in Bhutan. When possible, analyses are presented in typological and historical/comparative perspectives and…

This dissertation examines the particle "ye" in the IV century BCE Chinese Guodian manuscripts by providing a synchronic analysis of its functions and a diachronic hypothesis relating all functions to focus marking. I have subdivided the around 600 occurrences of "ye" into four main functions: focus marker, topic marker, clause connection…

Proposes a model for the description of "tense" in English verbs in the indicative mood. (AM)

Earlier version of the paper was read at the Kentucky Foreign Language Conference, Lexington, Kentucky, April 1971. (VM)

The logical relationship between evidence and inference, the time of inference, whether or not the inference has proved false, and the speaker's degree of conviction determine the choice between should" and must." Appears in Linguistic-Cultural Differences and American Education" anthology issue of The Florida FL Reporter."…

Examines the German "werden-" passives and their English counterparts identifying four basic constraints on the inclusion of "being" in the English passive construction. Uses contrastive analysis to explain the ambiguity of the English past participle, and orders the constraints on the use of "being" sequentially…

Analyzes the grammatical deviations in thirty-four Dr. Seuss books written between 1937 and 1973. (DD)

Advocates "pure intra-linguistic" criteria (rather than those of traditional grammar) to account for French usage in country names. The relationships between the phonology and the gender, and the use of the article and appropriate prepositional phrase, are suggested. A list of exceptions would be necessary. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

Discusses the fact that the basic tendency of structural grammar theory has been to emphasize the principle of formality of description, rather than formality of content. (CK)

Calls "pro-words" those which refer to a preceding substantive. They are (1) pronouns, (2) pronominal adverbs - "dadurch,""hiermit,""wofur," etc., and (3) pro-adverbs - "dort,""dann," etc. Both (2) and (3) stand for combinations of preposition plus preceding substantive; (3) does this only semantically, while (2) marks the relation overtly. (Text…

Contends that Latinism was rejected by nineteenth-century American traditional grammarians. (DD)

Discussion of the appropriateness of grammatical terminologies, old and new, occasioned by a reading of the text cited in the title. (RS)