The successful decoding of a linguistic message requires knowledge of a particular grammar, but it is becoming increasingly clear that contextual and cultural cues also play an important role in conversation. In Japanese, conversation proceeds smoothly and acquires some of its meaningfulness from the use of gestural signals, particularly head…

The structure of complementation in complex predicates in Korean has attracted configurational analysis. Using a lexical functional grammar (LFG) framework, this paper examines the structure of complementation in complex predicates. The term "predicate" in this context is used to describe both verbs and adjectives that are assumed to…

Reflexives and reciprocals in Ixil, a Mayan language of Guatemala, appear to have features that distinguish them from reflexives surveyed in typological studies such as Faltz (1985) and Geniusiene (1987). Third person reflexives and reciprocals seem to have the form of a possessed noun optionally followed by a possessor NP. Moreover, reflexives…

Native American language communities have had four choices regarding the adoption or change of a writing system in recent years: to adopt or not to adopt a system, or in the case of an existing system, to alter it or not to alter it. The paper also examines the criteria of orthography choice and functions of literacy. Bilingual education issues…

The history of one morphological pattern in Swahili relative clause structure, in which the relative particle attaches to "-amba," is discussed. First, the patterns of this construction are analyzed and illustrated. The evolution of this formation from an archaic verb is then examined, noting the difficulties in tracing its history…

The dictionary of Binukid, a language spoken in the Bukidnon province of the Philippines, is intended as a tool for students of Binukid and for native Binukid-speakers interested in learning English. A single dialect was chosen for this work. The dictionary is introduced by notes on Binukid grammar, including basic information about phonology and…

This paper demonstrates that the phonetic vowel sequences of Konni can be analyzed as a dipthongization of long mid vowels. Evidence from phonetics, phonological rules, and tone is cited to support this conclusion. The vowel harmony system of Konni is reviewed and underspecification of features is seen to play a crucial role in explaining vowel…

A number of Seri verbs display a sensitivity to whether a goal, which is a term used for recipients, adressees, etc., is singular or plural. The data presented in this paper are of typological interest. It is argued that Seri has indirect objects, but that there is no one-to-one mapping between the semantic role goal and either the syntactic…

Problems in determining the origins of Sumerian, an ancient language, are described, and an alternative approach is examined. Sumerian was spoken in southern Iraq in the third millennium B.C. and later used by Babylonian and Assyrian scribes as a classical language. While early texts in Sumerian are considered a better reflection of the original…

This paper examines a phenomenon in the Setswana language whereby certain affixes, when combining with the verbal base, adjust their positions and forms according to phonological rules that can be termed "imbrication." D. T. Cole, among others, made a fair attempt at a morphological identification of these realizations, but did not go…

This paper examines the distribution of third person pronominal clitics in Catalan causative constructions (CC), suggesting that an analysis of CC and cliticization crucially involving head-movement (verb incorporation and determiner incorporation) can explain the phenomena. Such an analysis can also explain the optionality of clitic climbing and…

This paper analyzes the Kansa Indian language vocabulary collected by Prince Alexander Philip Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied during his journey through the plains of North America between 1832 and 1834. Prince Maximilian's word list is likely the oldest existent vocabulary on this language. His vocabulary, published in 1843 as an appendix to his…

This paper focuses on the long-standing problem in Bantu syntax of why some objects lose the ability to be realized as object markers (OMs) in the passive. The standard answer to this question since the work of Gary and Keenan (1977) is that the passive and object marker require the same property (e.g., a grammatical relation or a particular case)…

The distribution of Hualapai auxiliary verbs "-yu" and "-wi" can not be explained only by the presence or absence of an object, or by the active or stative feature of the matrix verb. It can be explained in terms of transitivity, in that "-wi" corresponds to high transitivity and "-yu" to low transitivity of…

There are certain pre-coded (formulaic) utterances conventionally triggered by certain communication situations, and their use is expected and deemed appropriate because they are seen as part of everyday politeness formulas. Lack of an English equivalent indicates cultural differences governing their use. Some routines are taught explicitly and…