This paper sketches a comprehensive framework for modeling and interpreting language contact phenomena, with speakers' bilingual strategies in specific scenarios of language contact as its point of departure. Bilingual strategies are conditioned by social factors, processing constraints of speakers' bilingual competence, and perceived…

This study compared segmental distribution patterns for consonants and vowels in English infant-directed speech (IDS) and adult-directed speech (ADS). A previous study of Korean indicated that segmental patterns of IDS differed from ADS patterns (Lee, Davis & MacNeilage, 2008). The aim of the current study was to determine whether such differences…

The early development of vocalic and consonantal production in Mandarin-learning infants was studied at the transition from babbling to producing first words. Spontaneous vocalizations were recorded for 24 infants grouped by age: G1 (0 ; 7 to 1 ; 0) and G2 (1 ; 1 to 1 ; 6). Additionally, the infant-directed speech of 24 caregivers was recorded…

Phonological constraints can, in principle, be classified according to whether they are natural (founded in principles of universal grammar (UG)) or unnatural (arbitrary, learned inductively from the language data). Recent work has used this distinction as the basis for arguments about the role of UG in learning. Some languages have phonological…

This article deals with the interlanguage of adult second language (L2) learners acquiring finiteness. Due to the inaccessibility of bound inflectional morphology, learners use free morphology to mark a syntactic relationship as well as person and number features separately from the thematic verb, expressed by a pattern like "the man is go".…

Similarities among different languages that are met with by means of empirical, confrontative analysis should not be mistaken for universals in the logical or philosophical sense. What Verma has described as the "propositional constituents" of a sentence (participants, process, and a temporal relation) may be considered logically…

Notes similarities between certain aspects of the development of the natural language English and the artificial language FORTRAN. Discusses evolutionary history, grammar, style, syntax, varieties, and attempts at standardization. Emphasizes modifications which natural and artificial languages have undergone. Suggests that some modifications were…

The relationship between linguistic types and the valence of operators on the genotype level of Applicative Universal Grammar (AUG) is examined. Assuming that the "t" and "s" types may be treated as zero-place operators, a relationship is found between the valence of an operator and its genotype, which explains the difference…

Argues that referring expressions in all languages are specialized as to the degree of accessibility they mark. The treatment of referring expressions should not be separate from expressions which serve as antecedents as opposed to those which are always anaphoric. (CB)

Rules in this study are limited to linguistic entities which are said to have truth value, to be followable and prescriptive, to have been adopted and remain in force until unadopted, and to be conditional. The concern is with the nominal referential use of rules rather than their verbal use. The book is divided into four sections. The first…

Examines the theory of "natural semantic metalanguage," which argues that all languages share an irreducible core of universal semantic primitives with certain universal syntactic properties. Hypotheses on the universal syntax of semantic primitives are outlined. Topics include valency options and complementation possibilities of…

A comparison of terms from the lexical domain of color naming across 10 different sign languages from 7 different sign language groups suggested that, for naming colors, sign languages follow universal patterns not dependent upon the channel of language expression and reception. (Author)

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…

A child acquiring a language must learn to correctly match the phenomena of the realworld which he perceives with the lexical items and the segregates and perhaps some of the grammatical categories of the language to be learned. He must correlatively learn the organization in meaning of and among these last named elements, that is, the internal…

Three experiments using 3- and 4-year-olds as subjects tested the hypothesis that focal colors are more salient than nonfocal colors for young children and are the areas to which color names initially become attached. (NH)