Among the many ways in which sounds alternate in the world's languages, changes in the order of sounds (metathesis) are relatively rare. Mutsun, a Southern Costanoan language of California which was documented extensively before the death of its last speaker in 1930, displays three patterns of synchronic consonant-vowel (CV) metathesis. Two of…

Taking up analytical issues raised primarily in Dixon (2000) and Dixon & Aikhenvald (2000), this dissertation combines descriptive work with a medium-sized (50-language) typological study. Chapter 1 situates the dissertation against a concise survey of typological-functional work on causative constructions from the last few decades, and…

Learners frequently experience phonologically inconsistent input, such as exposure to multiple accents. Yet, little is known about the consequences of phonological inconsistency for language learning. The current study examines vocabulary acquisition with different degrees of phonological inconsistency, ranging from no inconsistency (e.g., both…

THE PHONETIC FEATURES OF AMERICAN ENGLISH AND OF THE FOREIGN LANGUAGES TAUGHT IN THE UNITED STATES WERE ANALYZED AND DESCRIBED. STUDIES INVOLVED COMPARING ENGLISH TO GERMAN, SPANISH, AND FRENCH ON THE BASES OF VARIOUS PROSODIC, VOCALIC, AND CONSONANT LANGUAGE FEATURES. SPECTROGRAPHIC PATTERNS OF CONTRASTIVE UTTERANCES WERE ANALYZED, SYNTHESIZED,…

This article proposes a California Penutian etymology for two distinct roots meaning "two," and shows some of the transformations of morphological material which have characterized innovations in language subgroups related to California Penutian. This provides important evidence for the history of California Penutian. (CLK)

THE HYPOTHESIS THAT TYPEWRITING INSTRUCTION COULD BE USED AS AN AID TO THE LEARNING OF ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE WAS TESTED. STUDENTS WERE ASSIGNED TO EXPERIMENTAL AND CONTROL GROUPS, MATCHED ON THE BASIS OF PRECOURSE ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEST SCORES AND SUCH OTHER FACTORS AS NATIVE LANGUAGE. BOTH GROUPS COMPLETED THE REGULAR 12-WEEK, ENGLISH…