Ten linguistic groups of Canadian Indians composed of a number of subgroups speaking related languages or dialects have been determined. Six major cultural areas (geographic) have been identified by cultural characteristics and linguistic affiliation of their inhabitants. Tables for each Canadian province identify Canadian Indians by band or…

Any theory of language acquisition must take into account the actual speech heard by children during the acquisition period. When 8 well-educated mothers were tape-recorded talking to their daughters, ages 16 to 30 months, it was found that their speech differed significantly from that spoken to another adult. The mothers used a more restricted…

This paper reports the results of an experiment with 21 Italian children (age 2;8-5;11) and 29 U.S. children (age 2;7-5;9) who were tested on their knowledge of verb raising to C in main WH-questions, an obligatory movement process in adult Italian and English. Along the lines of recent movement and feature checking theories, it is proposed that,…

It is possible to perform a structural analysis of similar conversations and define units within particular types of conversations to discover the regularities underlying the considerable variation in natural communication. Convergent communication consisting of an exchange of information in pursuit of a mutually agreed upon goal can be seen as a…

The underlying assumptions of the study described in this report are that language change in process is revealed through language variation and that variation is rarely random. With these two ideas in mind, the author studies the presence of "r" in Hawaiian English and considers its appearance in various environments. The study also…

This study of vocabulary change investigates the regional vocabularies found in eight of the Southern states and seeks conclusions about the relative changes in uniformity in current local use. Assumptions, procedures, and techniques for research are presented here. The results reported were obtained from a printed vocabulary questionnaire…

The experiment described in this report investigates two basic questions concerning beginning reading instruction to speakers of nonstandard dialects. 1--Will learning to read be facilitated if the primary reading material is phrased in the actual word patterns and grammatical structure used by the children in their oral speech? 2--Will learning…