Languages in the Mesoamerican linguistic area have been reported to lack a dedicated means of expressing the privative meaning that encodes the absence of a participant in a situation. This micro-typological study identifies alternative strategies that the languages in this area employ to function without dedicated privative markers, namely…

The purpose of this article is to briefly review recent findings on Ontarian French; to refute claims that it is not an authentic French dialect; and to examine some of the implications these findings may have for French language instruction in Ontario. (Author/SJL)

A review of research about second language learning indicates that nonprimary acquisition is sensitive to the center-periphery distinction. There is clear evidence that this construct has reflexes in interlanguage word order with respect to the probability of native word order influence, difficulty, and order of emergence. (CB)

This paper proposes a tentative notational or marking system which attempts to provide more information on the sociolinguistic constraints upon the use of linguistic features than has been the case in other systems. A review of other studies in language variation, particularly those of William Labov, suggests that much can be done toward…

Standard measures and techniques are needed to establish resemblances and differences among languages. A determination of the degree to which one lanquage or dialect differs from another requires the examination of language universals. To study what languages have in common, attention has to be given to the physical, psychological, and social…