Body parts have played an important role in the development of theories describing grammaticalization processes (Heine and Kuteva, 2002, pp. 62-63 and 165-171). Within Uralic linguistics, this particular area of study has not yet received a great deal of attention, although the agglutinative character of most of these languages is known to have…

In this paper, the patterns of semantic extensions of allative markers are compared with those of ablative markers from a cognitive-typological perspective. Despite the symmetry the two notions appear to exhibit semantically, goal and source exhibit asymmetry and the prevalence of the former over the latter can be seen in a wide range of…

The aim of this paper is to compare the treatment of syntactic functions, and more particularly those traditionally labelled as Subject and Object, in Functional Discourse Grammar and Role and Reference Grammar. Relevant aspects of the overall structure of the two theories are briefly described. The concept of alignment between levels of the…

This paper presents a comparative study of typical and atypical consonant harmony (onset-onset place harmony), with emphasis on (i) the size of the harmonic domain, (ii) the position of the harmonic domain within the prosodic word, and (iii) the maximal size of the prosodic word that exhibits consonant harmony. The data, drawn from typically and…

Scientific discourse is characterized by multi-semiotic construction and the resultant semantic expansions. To date, there remains a lack of analytical methods to explicate the multiplicative nature of meaning. Drawing on the theories of systemic functional linguistics, this article examines the meaning-making processes across language and…

It is cross-linguistically common for languages to undergo a diachronic increase in the range of adverbial notions that can be expressed by means of infinitival constructions, and the Romance languages are a good example of this process. Examining the development of adverbial "prepositional infinitive" constructions in Spanish, Portuguese and…

Reviews work on the acquisition of complex verbs in American Sign Language (ASL), delineating three lines of research showing how children acquire ASL and discussing possible reasons for the particular fashion in which different children (native learners, non-native learners, and native learners with parents who are non-native learners) acquire…

A study examined the process of grammaticalization in American Sign Language, examining basic principles and patterns and drawing parallels with oral language. More advanced stages of grammaticalization (involving fusion and affecting syntax) are examined in depth, leading to proposal of a temporal-ordering analysis to explain sequencing of verbal…

Author funded by grants from the National Science Foundation and the Consilium for African Studies of Yale University. Research undertaken with the cooperation of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies of Haile Selassie I University. (VM)

Proposes that formal properties of speech reflect individuals' mental processes during problem solving, focusing on ways native and non-native speakers of English construct narrative. In difficult tasks, speakers cope by externalizing their inner order as private speech, whose content and formal properties reflect cognitive processes. It is argued…

Investigates the psychological representation of visual-gestural languages from a cross-linguistic perspective. The perception of signers of American and Chinese Sign Languages is analyzed. (27 references) (Author/VWL)

Discusses Austin's ideas about language in relation to the ideas of Roy Harris, and, more specifically, the Austinian attitude toward language and integrational linguistics.(seven references) (CK)

Discusses a study of selected morphological features of the two surviving manuscripts of Lazamon's "Brut." The text, which is one of the main sources of evidence as far as Early Middle English is concerned, had been the subject of scholarly interest. Compares the strong verb system and personal pronoun usage in the two manuscripts based…

Argues against the idea that phonetic representation and phonological representation are related to each other by computational transformation, based on analysis of the philosophical presuppositions of the concept "representation" and made from the perspective of phenomenology, not cognitive science. An alternative approach to phonology is…