The author of this paper argues that, in the study of current usage, we need to supplement data from corpus studies by using methods that elicit use, reports of use, and evaluations of use on items which interest them. Ten methods for experimental elicitation of such data are described, related to one another, and illustrated with examples of data…

Distinction is made between nonsignificant (i.e. definitional or accidental) and significant universals. Two approaches to discovering the significance of universals are characterized and evaluated: the process-state approach, which aims at "transmission-significant" universals, and the transformationalist approach, which seeks for…

Based on previous research showing five examples of verb reduplication in Majang, a member of the Nilo-Saharan language family, this paper presents more specific examples of verb reduplication, its different uses, and the phonological rules governing it. Examples of possibly reduplicated forms from other parts of speech are also given, and data…

A statistical analysis of 3,170 entries in the Kotelova and Sorokin dictionary "Novyje slova i znacenija: slovar'-spravocnik po materialam pressy i literatury 60-x godov," Moscow, 1973 and the Stejnfel'dt dictionary "Castotnyj slovar' sovremennogo Russkogo Literaturnogo Jazyka," Moscow, n.d. establishes a clear-cut correlation between the new…

This is a study of tense variation in "si"-clauses in Buenos Aires Spanish which basically consists of the substitution of the conditional for the imperfect subjunctive. The highest frequency of imperfect subjunctive shows up in +Contrary examples, while the conditional substitutes much more often in -Contrary examples. When the…

This paper examines aspects of variation in child language, and specifically how children express causal relations in complex sentences. Four particular types of variation were observed: (1) the order of clauses and the connectives used to link clauses; (2) mothers' causal statements; (3) interaction of language form and content, in the form of…

The fourth volume in this series contains the papers presented at the Zagreb Conference on English Contrastive Projects. They are: "Recent Center Activities in Contrastive Linguistics," by William Nemser; "The Yugoslav Serbo-Croatian-English Contrastive Project So Far," by Rudolf Filipovic; "The Poznan Polish-English Contrastive Project," by Jacek…

A conservative analysis of simple declarative sentences in Lummi is given in order to clarify the role of the morpheme "ng" (a phonetic approximation of this morpheme) and the order and form of pronouns. In Lummi the combination of the transitivizer and "ng" acts as a passive marker on the verb. However, there are cases where…

From the beginnings of English grammar in the early sixteenth century, our language has been described by men, and the usage promulgated as the "standard" has been that of men. Because men have been able to effectively control English through their control of the communications media and educational institutions, they have made our language an…

In the contemporary standard Warsaw Polish of educated Poles, there is evidence of a system of gender-marking whereby masculine-gender nouns are being substituted for feminine professional names, working titles and surnames. The current usage is attributed to the change of status of the modern woman, or, more precisely, to her increased…

Traditional descriptions of Italian phonology have occasionally suggested that some type of connection exists between "raddoppiamento sintattico" (RS) and the word internal consonant length contrast. (RS is defined as a systematic lengthening of the first consonant of the second word in a two-word sequence in certain syntactic and phonological…

This paper defines the grammatical role of a particle in Swahili in terms of the semantic information which it contributes to all utterances in which it occurs. The particle -A occurs in the syntactic configuration Noun 1 -A Noun 2 and has been traditionally described as reflecting relations of possession and attribution between the two nouns in…

This paper suggests methods for teaching the Russian verbs that govern what are loosely termed "objects" in oblique cases. The case government of such verbs is not necessarily an individual irregularity. Definite patterns emerge, both morphological and semantic, to facilitate grouping these verbs into classes. Russian verbs requiring genitive…

A discussion on the nature of language argues the following: (1) the concept of a closed and finite rule system is inadequate for the description of natural languages; (2) as a consequence, the writing of variable rules to modify such rule systems so as to accommodate the properties of natural language is inappropriate; (3) the concept of such…

The following conference papers are included here: (1) "Language Typology and Contrastive Linguistics," by Laszlo Dezso and William Nemser, summarizes the history of typology and discusses the application of typology to research on language acquisition. (2) "Contrastive Aspects of British and American English with Implications for…