This paper investigates the status of the null object in Mandarin Chinese. It proposes that if an object is topicalized, the empty category in the object position should be analyzed as a variable. If it is not topicalized, it is a "pro." It is argued that a pro resembles an overt pronoun in obeying Condition B, but differs from the…

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…

From the beginning of life, a child's acts of meaning are joint constructions, enacted through dialogue between himself and a significant other by reference to whom he is achieving a personal identity. When the child begins to control his material environment, he begins the transition to systematic symbolic construction. At the same time, he is…

This study focuses on the use of modes that are dependent on impersonal structures found in the French spoken in Quebec. Six impersonal structures are identified as causing modal variation in the subordinate. This variation is constrained mainly by linguistic factors. Social factors also influence the variation, but the amount of influence exerted…

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,…

This examination focuses on the idea that child language acquisition is constrained by the same principles that have been found to hold on syllable structure across languages. First, a recently-proposed constraint on syllable structure, the Sonority Cycle, is outlined, and the way that it accounts for syllabic structure across languages is…

A study investigated children's use of three acoustic parameters (intensity, fundamental frequency, and duration) in the production of two-syllable nonsense words. Subjects were six children each at ages 2, 3, and 4 years with age-appropriate language skills and normal hearing sensitivity. An examiner produced eight novel two-syllable words of…

There is an obvious morphological relationship between complex words such as "man-eater and self-locking" and phrases such as "eats men and locks itself." The perception of derivation suggests semantic relatedness and provides evidence for the notion of analytic synonymy and by extension, analytic hyponymy. However, judgments…

Case marking strategies in Kope, a Papuan language of Papua New Guinea, are analyzed in light of previous claims that most Papuan languages have one strategy for marking core relations and another for marking peripheral relations. A brief grammatical overview illustrates how core and peripheral relations are marked in Kope, including nominal case…

An analysis of Hebrew topicalization looks at the normal or unmarked function of topicalization in narrative discourse and considers the additional contextual effects that marked or apparently redundant instances of topicalization are intended to achieve. Focus is on the fronting of elements in sentences with topic-comment articulation. It is…

This dictionary is a composite of four Philippine Creole Spanish dialects: Cotabato Chabacano and variants spoken in Ternate, Cavite City, and Zamboanga City. The volume contains 6,542 main lexical entries with corresponding entries with contrasting data from the three other variants. A concluding section summarizes findings of the dialect study…

A study investigated the acquisition of the phonemic feature/voice/ and, more specifically, voice onset time (VOT), in Hindi and English. Subjects were 20 monolingual children aged 2 to 6 from each of the 2 language groups, divided into 5 age groups, and 10 adults from each language group. Flash cards depicting minimally contrasting sets of words,…

A discussion of agency looks at cross-linguistic evidence concerning the place of volition, animacy, and person in a model of agentivity. Two views of agentivity are presented as complementary rather than mutually contradictory. Data from Lhasa Tibetan that support a less restrictive notion of agency than is often assumed are presented. In this…

A study of tone and accent in Qafar, a Cushitic language characterized by tonal rather than stress accent, modifies an earlier claim made about the relationship between accent and gender. The newer study makes a proposal that simplifies the account of gender in that this category is seen as determined rather than determining. This further suggests…

One of a series of semiannual reports, this publication contains 13 articles which report the status and progress of studies on the nature of speech, instrumentation for its investigation, and practical applications. Articles and their authors are as follows: "The Role of Contrast in Limiting Vowel-to-Vowel Coarticulation in Different…