In addition to providing an account of the empirical facts of language, a theory that aspires to account for language as a biologically based human faculty should seek a graceful integration of linguistic phenomena with what is known about other human cognitive capacities and about the character of brain computation. The present discussion note…

Discusses and critiques the ideas presented in Joseph H. Greenberg's 1987 book, "Language in the Americas." The book has been greeted with dismay by many specialists in Amerindian linguistics. (38 references) (JL)

Deals with how phonological changes occur and why. Presented as a response to "how" is the idea of lexical diffusion with focus on the temporal and lexical dimensions of sound changes. Evidence has been gathered from various languages to support this theory. Actuation is presented as occurring for physiological and perceptual reasons. (SC)

The manifestation of time, space, and person reference in American Sign Language is described and discussed. The effect of the modality of communication on the language system is studied. (Author/RM)

Local inversion in English and Chichewa shows remarkable similarities that can be explained by hypothesizing the same underlying argument structures and principles for mapping argument structure roles into syntactic functions. However, profound typological differences between the two languages defy analysis within a widely assumed architecture of…