This report is a detailed empirical examination of Suppes' ideas about the syntax and semantics of natural language, and an attempt at supporting the proposal that model-theoretic semantics of the type first proposed by Tarski is a useful tool for understanding the semantics of natural language. Child speech was selected as the best place to find…

After a brief history of influences on the standardization of Russian since the Revolution, the descriptive and normalizing role of specific reference works of grammar, phonetics, vocabulary, and morphology is discussed. Concluding remarks point out a problem caused by a lack of coordination of standardization efforts and the mounting demands for…

Lectures, outlines, and class exercises are collected from 16 experienced teachers of general semantics in colleges, adult education, and management training. Among the subject areas explored in the sample lessons are high-level abstractions, extensional-intensional meanings, the "is" of identity, listening, classification, labeling, general…

This comparative study of traditional and transformational approaches to the syntax of standard Russian proposes the superiority of analysis in terms of possible and impossible transformations, thereby revealing the existence of a level of linguistic form superior to that of simple morphophonemic description. Five classes of word-combinations of…

This variable rule analysis of the indefinite article "an" was done by means of a computer program developed by H. Cedergren and D. Sankoff of Montreal. The data was collected from 45-minute interviews with three different groups of college students essentially alike in age: (1) 13 whites from Louisiana, (2) 12 blacks from southwestern Ohio, and…

This report presents a general study of the structure of Dravidian languages, nothing predominant and significant patterns and similarities among the languages in the areas of phonology, morphology, and syntax. There is also a discussion of the main differences of various subgroups or particular languages from the typical patterns. Background…

This paper discusses the relationship of Polish to the other languages considered to be within the Slavic group. The comparison is mainly phonological and considers the Proto-Slavic features still preserved in Polish as well as the distinctive features of Polish which have developed from Proto-Slavic. The development of vowels and consonants is…

The volume of working papers includes eight papers describing current theory and research in linguistics and in semantics and syntax. The following articles are in the collection: "The Grammar of Emotive and Exclamatory Sentences in English,""Linguistics as Chemistry: The Substance Theory of Semantic Primes,""On Perceptual and Grammatical…

This paper is concerned with the syntactic problems raised by the grammatical phenomenon in Japanese that is called here the "complementizer." In the types of sentences under consideration here, S2 is a nominal clause. Such a clause acts as a noun phrase adjunct to the verb in S1. The noun clauses in question are often followed by a…

Language use among linguistic minorities of the Northern Calotte (areas of Norway, Sweden, and Finland that lie above the Arctic Circle) is reviewed from the perspective of history and ecology of language. Two case studies examining language shift in these areas, where Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, and Sami are spoken, are also considered.…

Discusses, in the context of second-language learning, the definition of collocations in English and major approaches to linguistic description of prefabricated language. Presents data from a study comparing use of specific lexical collocations (phrases) by native speakers (based on existing language corpus) and learners of English (data drawn…

Nine papers on Yupik Eskimo prosody systems are presented. An introductory section gives background information on the Yupik language and dialects, defines prosody, and provides notes on orthography. The papers include: "A History of the Study of Yupik Prosody" (Michael Krauss); "Siberian Yupik and Central Yupik Prosody"…

Three articles on the orthography of Australian Aboriginal Kriol include: "Aspects of Developing a Writing System with Particular Reference to the Revision of the Kriol Orthography"; "A Guide to the Kriol Writing System"; and "A Resource Guide to Kriol." In the first two papers, issues of dealing with orthography in a…

The Instituto Caro y Cuervo of Bogota, Colombia, named after two outstanding Colombian intellectuals, was established in 1942 primarily to complete the lexicographic work of Rufino Jose Cuervo. It has continued its work through several reorganizations, and in 1947 was charged with the study of the present state of the Spanish language in various…

This study attempts to provide a systematic mapping of the linguistic structural properties of North American Indian languages. The study includes: (1) the history of areal-typological linguistic studies in North America; (2) a framework for the presentation of areal linguistic phenomena in North America; (3) a presentation and discussion of the…