This paper describes certain metonymies that are often employed in the daily French press. In such metonymies, a human being or a set of individuals are referred to by means of the name of an institutional location (i.e., a capital city, a ministry in a western country, the name of a country). These metonymic patterns do not seem to be used by…

Discusses the various functions of the Spanish gerund/participle: (1) as a constituent in the progressive construction, (2) as an adverb, (3) as an adverbial, and (4) as the head of clause. (EKN)

Describes a model that allows children to control the complexity of the speech they hear within conversations on a moment-to-moment basis. Experimental and observational data clearly delineate the reciprocal nature of how speakers "fine-tune" their speech to listeners. The effects of child-directed speech on language development are discussed.…

This document shares Dr. Walt Wolfram's views on African-American Dialect. He states that the most elementary principle is that all language is patterned and rule-governed, and one can apply that principle to African-American English, Appalachian English, and to every other dialect that is examined.

We report an investigation of 9-year-olds' ability to interpret idioms in relation to their reading comprehension level. We manipulated whether the idioms were transparent or opaque, whether they were real or novel, whether they were presented in isolation or in a supportive narrative context. As predicted, children were better able to explain the…

A large proportion of text is made up of a variety of multi-word units (MWUs). One type of MWU is "idioms". While previously linguists have established criteria to define an idiom, the criteria have often been general so as to apply to the wide-ranging MWUs found in this category, and have been a description of them rather than a definition. We…

This brochure discusses, in lay terms, how computers process language and why they may have difficulty in processing English. The brochure points out that English is a more difficult language to process than most people think, and that the brain is far more complex than the computer in its ability to decipher meaning. The examples of the word…

It is proposed that the functions of the Mandarin verbal suffix "-le" are three: (1) for marking non-continual factual actions or events; (2) for indicating the "peak" in an event line; and (3) for explicitly marking anteriority of an action or event. Observations of written language drawn from newspaper articles and…

Examines the structures present in the writing samples of bilingual respondents to written questions in Spanish in order to determine which forms represent a departure from standard Spanish; discusses the patterns that develop; and offers insights into the factors underlying this systemic departure from standard written Spanish. (26 references)…

The relationship between Eastern and Western languages is explored. Possible origins and the spread of language over the Eurasian land mass are discussed. (CW)

Describes a linguistic analysis computational system that responds to highly complex queries about morphosyntactic and semantic structures contained in large sets of language acquisition data by identifying, displaying, and analyzing sentences that meet the defined linguistic criteria. (30 references) (Author/CB)

Recently, there has been increased attention to the development of complex syntax by children with language disorder. An example is the work of Schuele and Nicholls and Schuele and Tolbert who describe the acquisition of relative clauses by a group of children with SLI. The current paper presents data from 66 children with language impairment,…

This paper draws from social science literature on Whiteness and anti-racism as well as personal classroom experience to examine the obstacles educators face in teaching anti-racism to White college students. Emphasis is placed on popular perceptions and common definitions of the word "racism" as it is used in mainstream American society. The…

In August 1843 Presbyterian minister Henry Highland Garnet delivered his "Address to the Slaves of the United States of America" to the National Convention of Colored Citizens in Buffalo, NY. While often read (and almost as often dismissed) as either an unqualified call for a violent slave rebellion or, at the least, a celebration of…

This brochure discusses, in lay terms, how languages change and how English in particular has gone through much alteration over the ages. It explains that languages change because: the needs of its speakers change; individual experience differs, and, therefore, the uses of language differ; new words are brought in from other languages or created…