Fieldwork with a Hydaburg resident yielded this descriptive paper, which focuses on Haida syntax, and especially predication. The verbal word in Haida is of three distinct types--active, stative, and neutral--the first two of which may occur in either SOV or OSV word order. Neutral verbal words are relatively rare and take active pronouns plus a…

A discussion of the sources of certain language universals argues that adjective/noun constructions pattern similarly to genitive/noun and relative-noun constructions because they are typical diachronic sources for adjectivals, and that relatives and genitives have the same diachronic source and thus the same set of synchronic behavior. It is also…

In the past, linguistic descriptions of the relationships common to passive sentences have not been universally applicable. Junction grammar, a type of generative grammar, is a model that may provide a means of describing universal passive relationships. Junction grammar differs from transformational grammar in that its rules (1) claim other…

In a sociolinguistic study of the verb phrase in Southern White English, a pattern of change in progress was observed. The 14 variables studied showed that certain variants were increasing, others decreasing, and yet others stable across time within the community, and that each variable's change was progressing in a wave sensitive to age, social…

This paper addresses itself to the way in which K'ekchi speakers identify the subject and the object in simple sentences. An attempt is made to determine: (1) whether K'ekchi has a basic word order, (2) the possible functions of any derived word order, and (3) whether there are any constraints on the logically possible word orders in K'ekchi. A…