Inalienable possession (iposs) in Mandarin Chinese has traditionally been thought restricted to associative (genitive) phrases where the possessor is juxtaposed to the possessum. In addition to such phrases, this analysis looks at five other possibilities where intrinsically relational nouns arise: zero anaphora; double subjects; passive of bodily…

An analysis of correlative constructions in Chinese that: (1) gives a principled account of the distribution of correlative markers; and (2) offers an explanation for some puzzling facts about distribution of anaphoric pronouns is presented. It is suggested that previous research has misidentified instances of verb phrase coordination as…

A study of discourse anaphora, anaphora in discourse that is not controlled syntactically, looks at the three types of such anaphora in Chinese: pronominal, nominal, and zero. The analysis focuses on the type of coreference in which the antecedent and the anaphor occur in clauses that occur adjacent to each other in linear order. In such clauses,…

An analysis of Kilega, a Bantu language spoken in eastern Zaire, focuses on the relative positions of subject and verb and agreement patterns, with particular attention to WH-movement. It is found that Kilega is a subject-verb-object language, but exhibits some variant patterns. WH-movement triggers verb-subject inversion and shifts agreement. The…

The relationship between turn-regulation, the phonetic features of pitch, and loudness is examined in a study of two recorded natural conversations in Akan. Analysis of patterns in turn-delimitation suggests that (1) diminuendo loudness, a low pitch height, and falling pitch movement are treated by turn-occupants and their co-participants as…

The nonuse of slang terms for cash among British bank and building society cashiers is noted and an explanation sought in the field of social control. The possible relevance of the Whorfian hypothesis is explored, and it is suggested that the in-house terms discussed have social, psychological and representational functions. (Author/CB)

This paper describes certain metonymies that are often employed in the daily French press. In such metonymies, a human being or a set of individuals are referred to by means of the name of an institutional location (i.e., a capital city, a ministry in a western country, the name of a country). These metonymic patterns do not seem to be used by…

Combinational characterization and statistical and computational techniques for generalizing rule analysis to the inference of rule order are applied to the problems of the reduction of the syllable-final consonants s, n, and r in Caribbean Spanish. Results show that aspiration and deletion can be seen as intrinsically ordered in both s and r…

Argues that conceptualization of English as an international language must take into account the changes the language has undergone in becoming an international medium of communication and that the diverse cultural identities of teachers of World English serve to enrich the language and reflect changes in it. (MSE)

Presents results of a detailed analysis of courtroom transcripts involving Spanish-English interpreting by four interpreters in Sydney, Australia, where consistent changes in the interpreted versions were found. Discusses omission of substantial diminution of reference to the courtroom reality in interpreted discourse and changes in tenor that may…

Presents data on patterns of language use by Italians living in Australia, focusing on the maintenance of Italian and Dialect under the impact of widespread shift to English. Data from self-report surveys suggest differences by gender, age, and region of origin and note that the position of Italian, though more limited, is somewhat more solid than…

A comparison of the contour alignment of nuclear and initial prenuclear accents was carried out for the Irish dialects of Gaoth Dobhair in Ulster (GD-U) and Cois Fharraige in Connaught (CF-C). This was done across conditions where the number of unstressed syllables following the nuclear and preceding the initial prenuclear accents was varied from…

In this article we examine language processing and development in Catalan or Spanish-speaking children with SLI, focusing on the study of the verb. We analyse the key initial phase of its process of acquisition and aim to define common features of the SLI group that distinguish them from children with normal language development. We intend to…

This cross-cultural discourse analysis examines the construction of environmental issues on Greenpeace web pages in China, Japan and Germany. To uncover the semantic representation of environmental activism on these sites, the authors sought to identify discursive homogeneity and divergence and to bring to light embedded cultural assumptions. The…

Discourse intonation attempts to explain how intonation patterns in English affect the communicative value of speech, through the use of falling and rising tones along with changes in pitch. The teaching of intonation seems to sit naturally with communicative language learning, but it is not an easy aspect of English to incorporate into the EFL…