Explores the speech of six nonnative speakers of English to achieve a greater understanding of what comprises fluency. Suggests that fluency is a complex, high-order linguistic phenomenon, and that the intuitive judgments about fluency level may take into account a wide range of linguistic phenomena. (SR)

Article omission is known to be a feature of early grammar, although it does not affect all child languages to the same extent. In this article we analyze the production of articles by 12 children, 4 speakers of Catalan, 4 speakers of Italian, and 4 speakers of Dutch. We consider the results in the light of (i) the adult input the children are…

This volume collects empirical studies applying Conversation Analysis to situations where second, third and other additional languages are used. A number of different aspects are considered, including how linguistic systems develop over time through social interaction, how participants 'do' language learning and teaching in classroom and everyday…

A WORD LIST OF SPOKEN RUSSIAN WAS COMPILED BASED ON AN ACTUAL COUNT OF 10,000 WORDS. THE WORDS WERE COMPOSED OF 50-WORD SAMPLES TAKEN FROM 200 ACTS OF 93 PLAYS PUBLISHED SINCE 1957. IT WAS FOUND THAT JUST 360 WORDS, FROM A TOTAL OF 2,380 WORDS TABULATED, REPRESENTED 73 PERCENT OF ALL OCCURRENCES. THE AUTHOR PREPARED SAMPLE DIALOGUES USING ONLY…

THIS PAPER DISCUSSES THE HINDI LANGUAGE SYNTAX OF PERFECTIVE PARTICIPIAL FORMS AS ADJECTIVES AND AS PARTICIPLES OF SEVERAL VARIETIES. THE FIRST PART OF THE REPORT DISTINGUISHES AND DESCRIBES EIGHT KINDS OF PARTICIPIAL USAGE AND SUGGESTS MORE GENERAL RULES FOR ANALYZING THESE USES. THE SECOND PART OFFERS A GENERATIVE DESCRIPTION OF THE SAME DATA.…

The relationship between linguistic types and the valence of operators on the genotype level of Applicative Universal Grammar (AUG) is examined. Assuming that the "t" and "s" types may be treated as zero-place operators, a relationship is found between the valence of an operator and its genotype, which explains the difference…

An analysis of semantically ergative languages begins with a description of the essential results of research on ergativity to date, and an outline of the assumptions and conceptual apparatus on which the analysis is based. Subsequently, data from 20 Daghestanian languages, primarily Archi, are examined for evidence of the syntactic features of…

Basil Bernstein's research on the sociology of language indicates that he views language as both subjective and objective. Subjectively, it structures an individual's intentions and thought processes; objectively, it preserves and makes public the store of knowledge of human society. The sharing of language is the basic way in which the objective…

THE PHONETIC FEATURES OF AMERICAN ENGLISH AND OF THE FOREIGN LANGUAGES TAUGHT IN THE UNITED STATES WERE ANALYZED AND DESCRIBED. STUDIES INVOLVED COMPARING ENGLISH TO GERMAN, SPANISH, AND FRENCH ON THE BASES OF VARIOUS PROSODIC, VOCALIC, AND CONSONANT LANGUAGE FEATURES. SPECTROGRAPHIC PATTERNS OF CONTRASTIVE UTTERANCES WERE ANALYZED, SYNTHESIZED,…

Analyzes the mechanisms involved in speech level shift in discourse that contains the "des/mas" forms. Concludes that level shift is often used to signal empathy between speakers and to indicate coherence and the hierarchical positioning of utterances in discourse. (EKN)

Explores the hypothesis that the meaning of a word, especially a noun, relates directly to the types of relationships that the speaker has to the various referents that the word lets him construct, and that the referents have with their environment. Polysemic, metonymic, and metaphoric uses then tend to become confused with the actual lexical…

Examines the Spanish imperative paradigm and Ramsey's notion that all forms of Spanish imperatives are substituted by subjunctives in the first and third person. The concept of deontic modality in demonstrating the relationships among imperative and imperativelike patterns that carry the meaning of obligation, permission, and prohibition is also…

Argues that words with different meanings normally appear in discriminably different contexts, and that the cue for learning to associate direct antonyms is not their substitutability but rather their frequent co-occurrence in the same sentence. (Author/VWL)

Discusses the importance, validity, and implications of the identity thesis that the P600 component of the scalp-recorded event-related potential is identical with the P3b, a domain-general component elicited by improbable task-related events. Explores epistemological complexities of the issue and discusses what the identity thesis does and does…

Investigates creation and interpretation of nonlexicalized categories within discourse, as indicated by the use of general extenders. Shows that such categories are locally contingent, depend on contextually salient features for identifying similarity among members, can be created through contrast or contiguity, and clearly depend on assumptions…