This study investigates how "phonological neighborhood density" (PND) affects word production and recognition in 4-to-6-year-old Russian children in comparison to adults. Previous experiments with English-speaking adults showed that a dense neighborhood facilitated word production but inhibited recognition whereas a sparse neighborhood…

Providing evidence for the universal tendencies of patterns in the world's languages can be difficult, as it is impossible to sample all possible languages, and linguistic samples are subject to interpretation. However, experimental techniques, such as artificial grammar learning paradigms, make it possible to uncover the psychological reality of…

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…

Two possible explanations based on elementary facts of physics are suggested for the universal preference for place of articulation of implosives and ejectives. Languages show a preference for ejectives in the order: velar, alveolar, and labial while implosives occur most often in the opposite order. A language will only have velar implosives if…

This article maintains that linguistic generalizations are likely to be invalid when they are based on data whose synchronic status is not well-defined. An example is made of the universal principles of grammatical rule ordering proposed in a 1974 study by Koutsoudas, Sanders, and Noll. (CLK)

Compares models of Optimality Theory (OT) and Variable Rules (VR), arguing that VR is superior on theoretical and empirical grounds: constraint effects are stable, transparent, learnable. Moreover, VR's probabilistic treatment of constraint effects allows successful modeling of cases in which multiple violations of a single constraint lead to…

Part of Lexicography and Dialect Geography, Festgabe for Hans Kurath''. (DD)

Revised version of a paper delivered at the 5th International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Language and Linguistic Studies, Ann Arbor, Michigan, October 20-21, 1972. Assistance provided through a Summer Faculty Fellowship, University of California, San Diego, and the Phonology Laboratory at Berkeley (supported in part by a National Science…

This paper discusses the term "language universal" and posits a definition of a "counter-universal." It is proposed that the voiced aspirates of Bario Kelabit represent an exception to a posited phonological behavioral universal and are an important addition to the inventory of possible phonetic segments. (AM)

Based on Mulder's previous classification of all semiotic systems designed to describe the system of discrete features in human languages, this article explores a further subclassification of the genus language into species. (CLK)

Research on which portions of this study are based was performed under a National Science Foundation Grant and a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. (VM)

It is proposed that in the teaching and testing of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL), emphasis should be placed on features that are universal to all languages rather than particular to Chinese. Shared properties of Chinese and other languages, particularly English, are illustrated through examination of three major language components:…

Describes single finger sign contact in data from ten different sign languages. The relative frequencies of signs using each of the four possible fingers are examined. Proposes distinctive features to explain the differences in frequency and use of these handshapes in sign languages in general. (Author/LMO)

An overview of contemporary Hispanic dialectology, focusing on phonological phenomena, syntax, classification schemes, and bilingual communities, demonstrates that dialectology has long ceased to be the collection of innumerable surface deviations. It is suggested that dialectology is a theoretical discipline searching for universal principles to…