When acquiring the English plural, children correctly produce plural words long before they develop an understanding of morphological structure. When acquiring Sesotho noun prefixes, children are aware of the multiple constraints governing variation from a young age. Both of these cases raise questions about the Shin and Miller (2022) account of…

The first stage of combinatorial speech is better described as variable than uniform. Talk of variants obscures two different aspects of language (knowledge and use) and two different aspects of language development -- acquisition of the grammar (competence) and deployment of the grammar in speaking and listening (performance). Null subjects and…

Poplack, Zentz and Dion (PZD; Poplack, Zentz & Dion, 2011, this issue) examine the often unquestioned assumption that the existence of preposition stranding (PS) in Canadian French is linked to the presence of a contact situation with English in the North American context. Although this issue has been the topic of previous research from a…

Prepositions can be found with and without adjacent complements in many forms of popular spoken French. The alternation appears in main clauses ("il veut pas payer pour ca [approximately] il veut pas payer pour" "he doesn't want to pay for [it]") and, though with a more restricted social and geographic distribution, in relative…

The authors of "Phrase-final prepositions in Quebec French: An empirical study of contact, code-switching and resistance to convergence", Poplack, Zentz & Dion (2011, this issue), henceforth cited as PZD, make a strong case for showing that, in spite of surface similarities, preposition stranding in Canadian French relative clauses…

This article presents an adaptation of a position paper written by Da Pidgin Coup, a group of concerned faculty and students in the Department of Second Language Studies (SLS). In fall 1999, the group became concerned about a statement made by the chairman of the Board of Education implicating Pidgin in the poor results of the students of Hawai'i…

Critically examines assumptions in teaching in a bi-dialectal context. Presents ethnographic data from one teacher's experience teaching a summer course in Shakespearean theater in which the students were speakers of African-American English. (Author/VWL)

Explores problems involved in defining Black South African English, such as whether it is a new variety of English or a dialect and relating to whose English it is: the English of those learners who have encountered only a smattering of English in informal contexts or the variety of English acquired during formal schooling. (Author/VWL)

Many anglicisms can be found in the Spanish of the Castilla region of Spain. English terms for sports, types of beverages, and miscellaneous items are discussed in terms of how they are used in Spanish. (NCR)

Discusses the politics of English and suggests that English varieties of the inner city and the socially disenfranchised continue to be stigmatized by speakers of more esteemed varieties. (Author/VWL)

The possibility should be considered that English grammar has been misanalyzed for centuries because of grammarians' accepting fundamentally flawed assumptions about grammar and, even more so, about the history of English--and that this has resulted in a huge disconnect between English grammars and the genius of English that really exists. The…

Sketches the history of the Scots language and the political and social history of Scotland, following with a description of the dialect, including its differences from standard English in phonology and vocabulary, and in the area of sociolinguistics. Some thoughts about the possible future of the dialect are added. (IFS/WGA)

Discusses two conflicting hypotheses concerning the nature of the New Zealand English short vowel system. Concludes that both hypotheses are to a certain extent wrong and to a certain extent correct. (Author/VWL)

Documents some of the linguistic changes brought about in the Roman Catholic Church in the United States as a result of the ecumenical movement and modernization. Available from the University of Alabama Press, Periodicals Department, P.O. Box 2877, University, Alabama 35486. (AM)

Appraises R. Kaplan's "contrastic rhetoric" in the light of a multilanguage research project on discourse structure. Concludes that Kaplan's specific analyses are in need of substantive revision. (FL)