Discusses dialectal variation in the lexical tone system of Ma'ya, an Austronesian language featuring three lexically contrastive tonemes. Representative acoustic data were collected from the Missol, Slawati, and Laganyan dialects, and on the basis of these data, an account is given of their tone systems and of how these tone systems compare to…

Discusses the vowel contrast of the vowel systems of English and Spanish, and concentrates on the difficulties posed by the interference of the English Schwa sound. (GLR)

The differential usage of negative forms in French and English is analyzed. French-speakers tend to use negatives often, as in negative questions and impersonal phrases. Study of translations also shows that many words with a positive equivalent in French are translated by a negative word or phrase. (five references) (Author/MSE)

Discusses the rise of Mexican Spanish as a distinct variety of Spanish and describes the regional and social dialects of contemporary Mexican Spanish. Although countless similarities exist between Mexican Spanish and the Chicano Spanish spoken in the southwestern United States, Mexican Spanish shows greater variability. (GR)

Argues that, in poetry where phonological patterning is dominant, some deviation from standard uses in the other linguistic systems (grammar, lexis) is inevitable. (Author/CK)

Spatial language in English and American Sign Language (ASL) was compared by asking 10 native signers and 10 English speakers to solve a set of spatial puzzles. The study highlights the ramifications of a linguistic system in which space itself is used to convey spatial information compared to one that conveys the same information via an auditory…

Reviews Thomas A. Sebeok's "Signs: An Introduction to Semiotics." This book teaches the reader to use terms like "sign,""icon,""index," and "symbol" with greater precision and effect. Sebeok's work spans more than three decades and strongly contributes to a number of related disciplines, especially…

A formal reading of word groups and a same/different listening test revealed that Hungarian Americans in South Bend, Indiana, exhibit a continuum in a short front unrounded low vowel phoneme, showing important differences between the informant's perception and production. The Hungarian-American and metropolitan Hungarian data were compared to…

Locally free reflexives in British English are analyzed as intensified nonnominative pronouns, subject to a contrastiveness requirement and a requirement that the character referred to be more central than other characters in the set. The extent to which discourse prominence marking can mimic locality marking may explain conversions of intensives…

Acoustic analysis of two vowels thought to be merged in Utah English suggest that there are small but consistent differences between them. A matched guise experiment provides evidence that when the vowels are merged hypercorrection is involved. (33 references) (LB)

Discusses the possessive, existential, and locational usages of the Mandarin Chinese verb "you3," arguing for the formulation of a single lexical entry of the verb within lexical-functional grammar and demonstrating the similarities between English idiom chunks and you3 expressions. (20 references) (Author/CB)

Trends in mechanical translation are reviewed briefly, and difficulties in selecting appropriate equivalencies are cited. Decisions dependent upon real world knowledge rather than dictionary equivalents and grammar are illustrated. (15 references) (LB)

Investigates principles for assigning case to the Noun Phrases (NP) in the Part-Whole Construction in Korean. It is shown that the case marking on the part-NP is a function of the case-assigning properties of the matrix verb, even when this is lexically governed. (41 references) (Author/LB)

The marking of past temporal reference in Black English Vernacular (BEV) and Trinidadian English is compared. Similarities in the patterns of variation according to verb type and phonological conditioning suggest that past marking in contemporary BEV preserves traces of an earlier shift from a creole pattern to one approximating the Standard…

Discusses differences in German and American English pragmatics in the use of routine formulae, e.g., "Hi, how are you," and small talk through the observations of native speakers of German reacting to the verbal behavior of American English speakers in the United States. (14 references) (JL)