Languages that have complex syllable patterns also share linguistic features with each other. These features can be identified through diachronic paths developed by these syllable patterns this study aimed to show the universality of syllabemes in Kazakh and other languages, focusing on questions like evolution of syllables in the Turkic…

The phraseology of precipitation as a weather phenomenon occupies an important part in the Kazakh and Kyrgyz languages. Each phraseological fund encompasses rich imagery and specific cognitive characteristics. The objectives of this research were to discover the cognitive characteristics of rain, snow and hail based on their participation in…

Depending on the demands of a particular communicative situation, bilingual or multilingual speakers ("bilingualism-multilingualism") will switch between language varieties. Code-switching is the practice of moving between variations of languages in different contexts. In an educational context, code-switching is defined as the practice…

This dissertation is a description of Xinaliq, a Northeast (Nakh-Daghestanian) Caucasian language spoken primarily in the village also called Xinaliq, which lies at an elevation of 7,000 feet in the Kuba district of Azerbaijan, near the border with Daghestan. Currently there are approximately 1,500 residents in the village. Most of them are…

Most of the ordinary words in a language do not mean; rather, they act as rigid designators, referring to the same object in all possible words in which the object exists. Most words are names that are used as rigid designators of kinds--natural kinds (species, genre, and so forth), artifacts, physical and social magnitudes, and sorts of…

The comparative method is not a single method of reconstruction but a complex set of procedures based on different assumptions and hypotheses about language change. The paper examines sound-meaning relationships, traditions, phonetic distinctions and the sets of oppositions, & regularity and irreversibility of phonetic change in the discussion.…

Outlines three features that render creoles synchronically distinguishable from other languages, all three clear results of a break in transmission followed by a development period too brief for the traits to be undone as they have been in older languages. Shows that an expanded data set reveals flaws in the socio-historical argumentation behind…

A discussion of Indo-European languages proposes that this language family is not genetically isolated but is distantly related to certain other language families of northern and central Eurasia, the Indian subcontinent, and the ancient Near East. The history of research into this macrofamily of languages, termed Nostratic, is reviewed, with notes…

Addresses some of the problems concerning the hierarchical relationship between language typology and genetic linguistics and between typology and universal grammar. (RM)

Revised version of a paper presented at the 1970 summer meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Columbus, Ohio. Research leading to the paper supported in part by a National Science Foundation grant to the Phonology Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley. (VM)

An analysis of Standard Average European, a European linguistic area, looks at 11 of its features (definite, indefinite articles, have-perfect, participial passive, antiaccusative prominence, nominative experiencers, dative external possessors, negation/negative pronouns, particle comparatives, A-and-B conjunction, relative clauses, verb fronting…

Problems in determining the origins of Sumerian, an ancient language, are described, and an alternative approach is examined. Sumerian was spoken in southern Iraq in the third millennium B.C. and later used by Babylonian and Assyrian scribes as a classical language. While early texts in Sumerian are considered a better reflection of the original…

Argues that both language-contact factors and typological evolution can effect changes in languages and language typology over time, and that it is not always easy to understand which factor has played a more prominent role in language change. Typological, areal, and socio-historical linguistics call for interdisciplinary cooperation. Examples are…

Different types of Persian impact on Irano-Turkic language varieties are surveyed and classified according to the Code-Copying model, which implies that copies of elements from foreign codes are inserted, globally or selectively, into a basic code that provides the morphosyntactic frame for the insertion. The study investigates under what…

Argues that with regard to an important part of verbal morphosyntax (Tense-Aspect-Mood or TAM), it is possible to speak of a Standard Average European. Focus is on origins and evolution of TAM-markers, or TAM-auxiliation, suggesting that particular verb structures provide conceptual sources for auxiliation, and that it has an areal configuration…