An analysis of tone in language begins with the observation that the structural approach taken in segmental phonology, analyzing complex tones in terms of sequences of level tones, is not necessarily appropriate with tone languages. A different approach is proposed, a "dynamic-tone" theory that represents tone contours entirely in terms…

This paper explores the problem of reconciling general psychological processing constraints with linguistic constraints on discourse structure. Two types of psychological constraints, the 'immediacy constraint' and the 'limited focusing constraint' are shown to combine with linguistic constraints to determine the pattern of eye movements during…

This paper describes and analyzes the complementation patter of Hausa aspectual verbs, examining some instances of aspectual verb complementation that have not been addressed in previous research. It attempts to show that, syntactically, the phenomenon of Control in this type of complementation exists in Hausa. It demonstrates that the…

This study investigated the nature and extent of differences in young children's talk when they interact with mothers and peers. Sixteen girls between 2.5 and 3.5 years of age played twice with their mothers and twice with a peer. Play sessions were videotaped and coded according to measures of quantity and quality of talk. Results of measures of…

A study investigating the acquisition of empty categories (ECs) in Sinhala, a language of the Indo-Aryan family spoken in Sri Lanka, is reported in part. The results examined here concern ECs occurring in a subset of adverbial clause types differing with regard to the kinds of null subjects they permit, including those obligatorily coindexed,…

Prepositions are usually presented as prepositions of time or place, and prepositions associated with certain verbs and adjectives. However, this type of presentation overlooks the bases for preposition usage and in turn fails to convey those bases to learners. An alternative approach to the analysis of prepositions from a notional perspective is…

Designed to divide recall protocols for subsequent category analysis, this instrument equates surface syntactic forms with semantic ideas. The instrument defines two types of syntactic proposition--a base syntactic proposition, the simplest independent prediction (structurally) that may be used to convey information, and an alternate syntactic…

The simplified documents produced by the British and Rhodesian governments to explain the settlement proposals to Africans are compared in terms of syntactic complexity and lexical choice, and in terms of the audience to which the documents are addressed. (Author/RM)

A tagmemic analysis of Zuni clauses in terms of their grammatical and sememic structure, that is, the participants in a predication and their relational roles. Special attention is paid to the effects on Zuni transitivity and to the difference between nucleus and margin clauses. (SCC)

Dialogues of sets of socially similar twins are studied. The opinion that twins have slower syntactic development than non-twins is seriously questioned. Dialogues with twins saying the same utterance together, correcting each other, quarreling, playing verbal games, etc. are analyzed in their deep structure. (SCC)

The linguistic structure of specific introductory type clauses, which appear at a relatively high frequency in the utterances of a severely brain damaged fluent aphasic with neologistic jargon speech, is examined. The analysis is restricted to one fifty-six-year-old male patient who suffered massive subdural hematoma. (SCC)

This paper concludes that there is evidence in favor of handling the derived nominals of Predicate AP's with a lexicalist theory, in conjunction with a base schema of the form (1)-(2). The transformation NP-Postposing is proposed to explain variations. (Available from North-Holland Publishing Co., P. O. Box 211, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.) (CHK)

Through discussion and illustrative events, an evolving segment of communication is described during the course of transition of one child's total communication system from the sensorimotor or gestural level at 12 months into the level of use of the adult words "more" and "mine," and associated utterances, at 24 months. (Author/RM)

This article discusses the difference between French and English constructions of motion and change of place, by contrasting French and English examples of such constructions. (CLK)

This is review number 3 for lessons 11-15 in a running series of lessons for speakers of English learning Spanish. The drills deal with relative pronouns, the distinction between the two Spanish verbs "to be,""ser" and "estar," the future tense and the passive voice. (TL)