A new theory of speech acts is proposed that draws a fundamental distinction between speech acts proper--declaratives, interrogatives, and directives--and the myriad social actions that are performed using language such as making promises, making offers, issuing invitations, and asking questions. The theory states that sentences are usally meant…

Working within the natural semantic metalanguage (NSM) framework of Anna Wierzbicka, this study proposes reductive paraphrase explications for a range of first-person pronominal meanings. It is argued that NSM explications are preferable to conventional feature analysis because they are less subject to charges of arbitrariness and obscurity and…

A revisionist account of the development of ideas about semantics in modern theories of language is presented, focusing on the rift between Noam Chomsky and Generative Semanticists about the concept of deep structure, or the role of meaning in grammar. The discussion re-appraises the paradigm that has dominated American linguistics since the…

This paper argues for the legitimacy of a paragraph as a linguistic unit. The arguments are based on: (1) the rule of pronominalization that makes crucial use of the paragraph; (2) establishment of surface constituent structure of the paragraph as evidenced in an analysis of the structures of recipe and medical discourses; and (3) postulation of…

Fifty-five structures of the Chinese language are described and their particular usage patterns are discussed for the use of teachers, linguists, and advanced students of Chinese. Each structure is listed by its major structural element(s), its grammatical element(s), or a combination of the two. The examination of each structure consists of an…

This report contains an extensive discussion of an approach to the study of discourse. Initial remarks concern arguments for studying discourse and approaches for discourse study that have been used; the author then discusses the relationship of discourse analysis and generative semantics. Language is considered on two issues: the decisions that a…

This volume is devoted to papers on an empirical or theoretical nature contributing to the study of language and communicative behavior in the Philippines. Articles included are: (1) "The Phonemic Consequences of Two Morphophonemic Rules in Molbog," by H. Arnold Thiessen; (2) "A Look at a Northern Kankanay Text (a syntactic…