Specific diphthongs were produced by four individuals from the coastal southern dialect region who were selected from among those who had successfully completed an accent-reduction program. Results showed that diphthongs used in Southern English were shorter and had less noticeable transitional elements than those in Standard American English.…

This study presents evidence collected from basilectal texts that the natural semantic metalanguage (NSM) mental predicates "think, know, want, feel, say, see, hear" have clear lexical equivalents in Hawaii Creole English (HCE), and that these HCE predicates occur, with minor qualification, in the syntactic configurations predicted by…

A study of the use of phrase-terminal extension particles in Montreal (Canada) French analyzed composition, sociodemographic patterns of occurrence, and discourse functions of 76 particle types in 4 distinct classes. (MSE)

The study examines one component of the system of complementation in Palestinian Arabic. It is argued that the complementizer in question has an inherent semantics capable of influencing the meaning of sentences in which it is embedded. Specifically, its presence in a complex sentence communicates modal meanings distinct from those communicated by…

This study tested a theory of null subject pronoun variation, based on a model of discourse connectedness, on the oral and written Spanish narratives of northern California Mexican-descent pre-adolescents. Results indicate the children with greatest depth of ties to the United States are less likely to use overt pronouns than children born in…

Some of the uses of laughter in conversation are examined, specifically as laughter occurs in a second language setting. Although the concepts of humor and laughter are often intertwined, not all laughter is humorous, nor does every humorous event evoke laughter. Furthermore, cross-cultural difference can contribute to misinterpretation of…

This study examined the speech act of agreement and disagreement in the ordinary conversation of English-speakers in India. Data were collected in natural speech elicited from educated, bilingual speakers in cross-sex and same-sex conversations in a range of formal and informal settings. Subjects' ages ranged from 19 to about 60. Five agreement…

A study investigated the relationship between syntax, discourse, and suprasegmentals in reported utterances (e.g., "He said,..."). The study is intended as both theoretical and descriptive, specifically, proposing a model of intonation in spontaneous oral Quebec French. The first chapter reviews research on Quebec French prosody, on oral…

A study analyzed four major classes of discourse marker in Brazilian Portuguese: "ne" and other requests for feedback; "ai," a sequential connector; "ah, bom," and other turn initiators; and "assim," a marker of explanation. Distribution in various discourse functions and sociodemographic conditioning, and…

A study analyzed patterns of usage of political vocabulary in Hong Kong English as found in newspaper reports of a leading Hong Kong English-medium newspaper and two other English-medium newspapers. Data were drawn from a computerized corpus and a clippings file. The report begins with an overview of the theoretical basis of the study of ideology…

The pragmatic expressions of Argentine Spanish (e.g., "bueno, viste, no? mira") are defined as deictic signals. They are deictic because they indicate elements of the communicative situation: transitions between text segments, conversational roles, or the social relationship between participants. They also signal contextual suppositions…

Examines competition between conflicting principles in Kenyan English (animacy hierarchy and discourse pressure to place given information before new), manifested in news discourse. Results suggest some differences between spoken and written Kenyan English pointing to a tendency toward a more standard native-speaker variety in news discourse, and…

Research by the staff and advanced students of the North Dakota Summer Institute of Linguistics is presented. In "Verb Agreement and Case Marking in Burushaski" (Stephen R. Willson), an overview of Burushaski morphology and syntax is presented, with special attention to verb agreement and case marking. "A Backwards Binding Construction in Zapotec"…

Articles on diverse areas of linguistics include the following: "Correlative Constructions in Chinese" (Steve Harlow, Connie Cullen); "Xhosa Isinkalakahliso Again" (John Kelly); "Conversational Phonetics: Some Aspects of News Receipts in Everyday Talk" (John Local); "Parametric Interpretation in Yorktalk"…

The collection of papers on linguistic experiments includes: "Discourse Functions of Pitch Range in Spontaneous and Read Speech" (Gayle M. Ayers); "When Is a Syllable Not a Syllable?" (Mary E. Beckman); "The Relationship between Syntactic and Semantic Processes in Sentence Comprehension" (Julie E. Boland); "The Influence of Orthography and…