Muysken argues for four general "strategies" that characterize language contact phenomena across several levels of description. These strategies are (A) maximize structural coherence of the first language (L1); (B) maximize structural coherence of the second language (L2); (C) match between L1 and L2 patterns where possible; and (D) use…

Analyses the use of the French "en". (AM)

Suggests that translational efficiency and effectiveness could be advanced by the same consideration of grammatical patterns that is standard with lexical items. Decries the absence of the type of grammar that could be a useful reference tool for translators and exegetes and describes some of its characteristics. (MES)

Explains why people say "for she and I"--and argues that such usage is correct. (RS)

Compares E-Prime, a form of English that eliminates all forms of the verb "to be," with E-Choice, a form of English eliminating pernicious occurrences of conjugated forms of the verb. Criticizes the use of E-Prime for its difficulty making certain statements and its premise that a mechanical device be substituted for the process of…

Provides the comments of D. David Bourland, Jr., inventor of E-Prime (a form of English that eliminates all forms of the verb "to be"), with regard to the articles included in this special issue. Outlines the meaning and uses of E-Prime. Critiques and discusses several of the issue's different articles. (HB)

Applicative Universal Grammar (AUG) is a linguistic theory based on combinatorial logic. This paper expands on the notion of "linguistic unit." Linguistic unit, as a notion, is generalized and the linguistic hierarchy supporting all natural languages is shown to be a hierarchy of linguistic units. It is argued that, on the genotype…

The divergence controversy is addressed in this holistic examination of Vernacular Black English (VBE). The debate over VBE stems from Labov's conclusion that the vernaculars of Black and White dialects in the South reveal completely different patterns of development. This study is based on patterns obtained from the writer's earlier research on…

Tense-subordination in English, as distinct from clause-subordination, is examined. The concept means that the viewpoint of one tense-form (the subordinate tense) is based on the viewpoint of another (the governing tense). (SW)

One important function of the imperfective aspect in Modern Greek is to indicate indefinite repetition; when a modal element is present, however, the perfective may be selected instead. (Author/CFM)

Using a particular sentence type--an exclamative construction referred to as "Nominal Extraposition" (NE)--this article outlines a formal model in which grammatical description includes the description of use conditions on form-meaning pairs. The article suggests that the relationship between NE and like exclamatives can be represented in an…

Describes a writing assignment in which a teacher asked students to prepare a one-page autobiography written in E-Prime, a form of English deleting all forms of the verb "to be." Presents student comments that suggest that the assignment was highly beneficial. (HB)

This discussion of gender constructs compares them with racial constructs, and examines ways in which language tends to dichotomize or polarize them, and to reject ambiguity as unacceptable. Other curiosities about sexual categorization are noted, including the fact that femaleness is subsumed under the category of "man," which in turn…

Argues that the late acquisition of the third-person singular agreement affix /-s/ in second-language learners of English is the result of a syntactic configuration that makes the ending appear ungrammatical to the learner of English while allowing agreement inflection to appear when the target language has a more robust agreement model, as in the…

Traces the historical development of E-Prime (a form of English that eliminates all forms of the verb "to be"). Considers some reasons why E-Prime has been advocated by semanticists. Provides arguments against the use of E-Prime. (HB)