The nominal lexicon of Seri is characterized by a prevalence of analytical descriptive terms. We explore the consequences of this typological trait in the landscape domain. The complex landscape terms of Seri classify geographic entities in terms of their material make-up and spatial properties such as shape, orientation, and merological…

The Burmese classifier system is coherent because it is based upon a single elementary semantic dimension: deixis. On that dimension, four distances are distinguished, distances which metaphorically substitute for other conceptual relations between people and other living beings, people and things, and people and concepts. (Author/RM)

In this study, we present the analyses stemming from a survey administered to 2149 foreign language learners at Michigan State University. We had three goals. First, we aimed to compile a profile of language learners' technological acumen, access to and ownership of technology, and the current uses of technology across a wide range of languages…

One central question in the formal linguistic study of adult multilingual morphosyntax (i.e., L3/Ln acquisition) involves determining the role(s) the L1 and/or the L2 play(s) at the L3 initial state (e.g., Bardel & Falk, Second Language Research 23: 459-484, 2007; Falk & Bardel, Second Language Research: forthcoming; Flynn et al., The…

Discusses the syntax and morphology of languages of active case or typology, chiefly found in North America (the Nadene, Sioux and Gulf families) and South America (the Tupi-Guarani family). (CK)

Descriptions by various professionals of 70 multiply handicapped deaf-blind children evaluated at the Syracuse University Center for the Development of Blind Children were examined for terminology used to describe the child and his life situation. Purposes were to develop some epidemiological characteristics of the multiply handicapped, deaf-blind…

The purpose of the current study is to elaborate on the statistical nature of the linguistic interdependence hypothesis (Cummins, 1979). It is argued that reading skills across the languages of bilingual learners are differentially robust to interdependence, falling along a continuum mediated by the commonalities between Spanish and English.…

Because the appearance of the passive construction varies cross linguistically, differences exist in the interlanguage (IL) passives attempted by learners of English. One such difference is the widely studied IL pseudo passive, as in "*new cars must keep inside" produced by Chinese speakers. The belief that this is a reflection of L1 language…

Grammars of signed languages tend to be based on grammars established for written languages, particularly the written language in use in the surrounding hearing community of a sign language. Such grammars presuppose categories of discrete elements which are combined into various sorts of structures. Recent analyses of signed languages go beyond…

This article discusses the species designation and taxonomies of Delaware and Algonkian and presents eight classifications of taxa by form, habitat, color, movement, sound, use, relationship, and appearance. Relevant research is also reviewed. (CLK)

Properties of the input, such as raw frequency and syntactic diversity, have been shown to play a role, to different extents, in the acquisition of nouns and verbs. This study investigated the relationship between three properties of the input (input frequency, syntactic diversity, and variety in noun-type co-occurrence) and age of acquisition of…

Even before it became a common place to assume that "the Eskimo have a hundred words for snow" the languages of hunting and gathering people have played an important role in debates about linguistic relativity concerning geographical ontologies. Evidence from languages of hunter-gatherers has been used in radical relativist challenges to…

The way adults express manner and path components of a motion event varies across typologically different languages both in speech and cospeech gestures, showing that language specificity in event encoding influences gesture. The authors tracked when and how this multimodal cross-linguistic variation develops in children learning Turkish and…

The Center for Applied Linguistics, in its function as a clearinghouse for linguistic information, maintains a set of language files, limited to some 300 languages which have been selected from among the 3,000 to 4,000 in the world for their socio-political importance from an American point of view. The present list, compiled from these files,…

Presents typology of main areas of language contact in Nigeria and diagrams those requiring translation in public domains. (BK)