This paper defines the grammatical role of a particle in Swahili in terms of the semantic information which it contributes to all utterances in which it occurs. The particle -A occurs in the syntactic configuration Noun 1 -A Noun 2 and has been traditionally described as reflecting relations of possession and attribution between the two nouns in…

This paper suggests methods for teaching the Russian verbs that govern what are loosely termed "objects" in oblique cases. The case government of such verbs is not necessarily an individual irregularity. Definite patterns emerge, both morphological and semantic, to facilitate grouping these verbs into classes. Russian verbs requiring genitive…

Traditional grammars are criticized as having obscured or omitted many significant features of negation patterns in classical Greek. The author demonstrates that negation in Greek extensively involves semantic and syntactic factors. Certain of the factors are thoroughly embedded in the traditional approach to grammar, while others are derived from…

The research reported in this paper concerns an initial study asking two questions: Is second language learning like first language learning? Is there a change in learning rate or process with age? A nonrandom sample of children aged 4 to 9 years was studied. Subjects were 31 English-speaking children in Geneva, Switzerland, who were in schools…

Thirty-two hearing-impaired adolescents were assessed on comprehension of three anaphoric forms within conjoined sentences: repeated noun, personal pronouns, and null form. The null form anaphora in a semantically acceptable environment, in which some hearing-impaired students apply a deviant object-subject deletion rule, was significantly more…

Refutes the theory that indirect requests are ambiguous. Arguments for it are examined and an attempt is made to expose the weaknesses in the kinds of tests generally used to detect "illocutionary" ambiguity. An alternative analysis in the framework of semantics and the pragmatics of directive speech acts is suggested. (AMH)

Argues that where Spanish is in contact with Quechua, the Spanish present perfect, preterite, and pluperfect are in contrast on the basis of a spatio-temporal parameter derived from the notion of present relevance. These innovative uses come from interaction between semantic systems of Quechua and Spanish and are consistent with universals of the…

This book introduces beginning students of linguistics at all levels and general readers to the study of language, providing an overview of key topics and an explanation of basic terms and ideas. The book is also designed to encourage the reader to think about the way language works and reconsider some popular misconceptions about language and…

Every sentence conveys a temporal point of view through its aspectual meaning. This viewpoint arises through presenting a situation from a certain temporal perspective and indirectly classifying the situation as an exemplar of an idealized situation type. The information is conveyed by the aspectual categories of a language. This paper presents a…

Foreign Workers' German (FWG) refers to the acquired German language skills of workers from various countries who were recruited to West Germany between 1955 and 1973 to fill menial, undesirable jobs. Contact between these workers and native German speakers was limited because of the nature of the foreigners' work, the tendency toward residential…

A stylistics-based approach to teaching poetry in the English as a foreign language classroom is examined. Since students may not have the linguistic skills to appreciate a poem, an analytical framework is proposed that includes the elements of repetition, confusion, and surprise. Reference is made to two poems, "In a Season of Unemployment"…

This account of the intonation of English is part of ongoing research at the University of Birmingham, England. It attempts to take account of how intonation contributes to the communicative value of an act of speech. An introductory chapter provides a short discussion of some crucial terms: pitch, loudness, stress, rhythm, and tone unit. The…

The work described in this paper was undertaken to study children's ability to preserve semantic relations during analogical mappings. Two experiments are described based on the understanding that metaphors and analogies are mappings from one semantic region (the domain of origin) to another (the range of application), which convey the idea that…

Language studies examining the language-thought relationship are important as are those that study other psychological factors concerned with the storage of knowledge. Since language is a product of the social process, it is important to consider that the meaning intended by the sender of the message (author) may not be the meaning decoded by the…

These papers deal with a variety of topics bearing on modality in a variety of languages and language families. While all languages have ways of expressing modality, that is, such notions as possibility, necessity, and contingency, this phenomenon has been the object of little systematic linguistic analysis. These papers are presented with the…