Anchored on Labov's notion that some linguistic features may exhibit variants among speakers of the same language within the same community as well as on Parker and Riley's language variation theory, this inquiry which employs a qualitative-content [manifest] analysis assumes that "Surigaonon" exhibits some linguistic variations hence…

An analysis of a corpus of 252 specialized terms relating to the field of videotex, 144 in French and 108 in English, is presented in this document. The methods by which these terms are formed in both languages is examined, focusing on whether the terms have a linguistic basis in the French language or are borrowed from English. The differences…

Provides an account of a distributional patterning found with certain modal verbs in a number of SVO languages of Southeast Asia, the occurrence of a particular alethic modal in predicate-final position. Describes the paradigm and how it's arguably the result of borrowing and transfer among the various languages. Its relevance for Cinque's defence…

A study examines the language contact phenomenon of Irish in which a native morpheme combines with a borrowed morpheme that has become, over time, fully assimilated. One variety of this blending in Gaeltacht Irish is the substitution of "-eir" for the English-bound "-er/-ar/-or," which is then combined with nativized borrowed…

The overall role played by hypercorrection in the literature on language change, language variation, and second language acquisition is reviewed. The paper argues that hypercorrection is not a completely unified phenomenon, citing an empirical study showing that quantitative methods applied to qualitative hypercorrection necessarily involve…

Twelve papers on codeswitching are reviewed briefly in this introduction to a special journal issue. The following topics are covered: borrowing versus codeswitching, codeswitching in a political discourse context, situational uses. (16 references) (LB)

German borrowing of English words after 1945 is analyzed, focusing on sociolinguistic and linguistic factors, changes English words have undergone in adoption into German, the main areas of borrowing, and the channels through which borrowing has occurred. It is proposed that the most common motives for borrowing are the importation of an object or…

Examines a specific type of code switching that occurs when bilingual peers make relevant their dual and simultaneous membership in the two groups symbolized by the two linguistic varieties involved in the switching pattern. Structural constraints and switching are discussed across code-switching types. (31 references) (Author/OD)

The linguistic situation of Yoruba is described briefly and the origins of Arabic influence on the language are examined. It is noted that Arabic influences Yoruba mainly through Hausa, and four basic conditions results from adaptation of Arabic phonemes in Yoruba: (1) the consonant, which does not exist in Yoruba, is dropped without replacement;…

A study investigated the validity of three theories in predicting the structure of language tone systems containing level tones. The theories include the following: that (1) phonetic elements are arranged so they are maximally separated in a fixed phonetic space; (2) a system with a larger number of phonetic elements will use a larger phonetic…

A study investigated patterns of English loan words in various domains of journalistic discourse in Thai print media, to gain insight into economic, political, and social relationships of the languages and the role of English as a global language. Thai was chosen because Thailand was not subject to colonialism by Europeans and because some…

A study of codeswitching patterns in American speakers of Finnish, primarily at the syntactic level, is presented. Subjects are 21 Finnish-English bilinguals aged 8 to 91 years, whose speech in naturally occurring speech situations was recorded and analyzed for intrasentential codeswitching. The analysis looked at (1) how much codeswitching could…

A context-based framework for teaching the history of Portuguese is presented. It incorporates passages from a medieval Galician-Portuguese work to illustrate diachronic linguistic processes in the evolution of the language. Advantages of the approach, prerequisites, text, and syllabus are described, and a sample analysis is provided. (53…

Lexical derivation in the Navajo verb system is described, with examples. Derivation involves four broad processes: (1) straightforward use of verbal roots and adverbial-derivational prefixes, with their base meanings; (2) extension of base root meaning, often by metaphor, to permit application to disparate concepts; (3) figurative use of…

Many black students speak a nonprestige dialect called black English, which places them at a disadvantage academically and socially. This monograph describes the features of black English, defines its use, discusses several theories of its origin, and offers some methods for teaching black students standard spoken usage as another style of speech.…