This paper provides a typological interpretation of differences between Chinese and English in grammatical metaphor (GM), a phenomenon arising from the interaction of semantics and lexicogrammar and extending the meaning potential in a language. This paper first describes typological features in Chinese and English in terms of the three variables…

This study analyzes the acquisition of relative clauses in Japanese to determine the semantic and functional characteristics of children's relative clauses in spontaneous speech. Longitudinal data from five Japanese children are analyzed and compared with English data (Diessel & Tomasello, 2000). The results show that the relative clauses produced…

Cross-linguistic research on the development of tense-aspect marking has revealed a strong effect of lexical aspect. But the degree of this effect varies across languages. Explanation for this universal tendency and language-specific variation is still an open issue. This study investigates the early emergence and subsequent development of four…

An analysis of semantically ergative languages begins with a description of the essential results of research on ergativity to date, and an outline of the assumptions and conceptual apparatus on which the analysis is based. Subsequently, data from 20 Daghestanian languages, primarily Archi, are examined for evidence of the syntactic features of…

Describes the work by Silvio Ceccato regarding machine translation systems and procedures, exploring such aspects of his work as functional philosophical approaches to machine translation, notional spheres, correlational analysis, and type classifications. Ceccato envisioned many of the methods that are now being applied in machine translation…

Argues that Charles Morris' division of signs into syntactics, semantics and pragmatics is too rigid. The line between pragmatics and semantics is not sharp, and a language theory is needed that can predict and explain borderline cases without forcing them into arbitrary established categories. (CHK)

Three linguistically significant dimensions of differences between illocutionary acts are outlined which are said to form the basis of a taxonomy of the fundamental classes of illocutionary acts. Five basic kinds of illoctionary acts are defined. An assessment is made of Austin's classification. (Author/RM)

Reference set computation -- the construction of a (global) comparison set to determine whether a given derivation is appropriate in context -- comes with a processing cost. I argue that this cost is directly visible at the acquisition stage: In those linguistic areas in which it has been independently established that such computation is indeed…

Most of the ordinary words in a language do not mean; rather, they act as rigid designators, referring to the same object in all possible words in which the object exists. Most words are names that are used as rigid designators of kinds--natural kinds (species, genre, and so forth), artifacts, physical and social magnitudes, and sorts of…

Describes the surface structure of German adverbs proceeding from the standpoint of dependence-valence grammar. On the basis of their meaning, adverbs are classified as modal, temporal and locational. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

Advocates the teaching of etymology and increased emphasis on vocabulary instruction by English teachers. (RD)

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)

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)

The ten papers in this volume are largely revisions of papers presented at the Texas conference, held March 22-24, 1973. The first paper, "Against Universal Semantic Representation," by Gilbert Harman, argues against the need for (and the possibility of) a level of semantic representation in a theory of language. "Remarks on the…