This paper argues that due to the facts of accent shift, Japanese accent should itself be interpreted as pitch rather than as a diacritic on the basis of which pitch patterns are imposed by rule. The solution offered is tentative and concerns only Tokyo Japanese. It is suggested that consideration of accent in non-Tokyo dialects will strengthen…

Metathesis, usually described in descriptive or historical linguistics as sporadic change, is investigated as a systematic phonological change using data from Gascon, an Occitan dialect. In the first chapter, the controversy over metathesis as a phonological change is presented and discussed from the standpoint of historical development. In…

Posits two hypotheses arising from the great immigration to Sweden and the immigrants' use and learning of Swedish: (1) Swedish as used by immigrant children may show certain features, related to a creolization process; and (2) the Swedish language may in future show signs of influence from the varieties used by persons with immigrant background.…

A dialect of Rato-Romansh spoken in a Swiss town is examined in the context of lexical phonology. The structure of this dialect's lexicon consists of two levels defined by stress assignment, not cyclically in this case but at the end of each level. Other considerations that have been advanced as bases for level division within the lexicon, such as…

Four hypotheses explaining the origin of Berbice Dutch, a Dutch-based Creole language spoken in the county of Berbice in Guyana, are explored. The most likely explanation is that the language was first spoken by Berbice slaves as a means of expressing the identity of a newly created "ethnic" group. (Author/CB)

The dictionary of Lushootseed, the Puget Salish Indian language spoken in the area of Seattle, Washington, begins with an introduction to the language's name, dialects, geographic distribution, research methodology and native informants, texts used as sources, and pronunciation and transcription. It also gives an overview of the way entries are…

There are two facets to the lyric rhythm of Taiwanese folk songs: beat alignment and metrical pattern selection. Because the lyrics are metrically derived from classical Chinese verse, a prosodic line may have syllable-beat symmetry. However, syllable-beat mismatches are also common. Lexical syllables have preference over functor syllables in beat…

Some of the problems inherent in a word-based hypothesis asserting that the word/stem is taken as the minimal sign not only for syntax but also for morphology are examined in an analysis of a polysynthetic language, Koyukon, an Athabaskan language of Alaska. Data from the Central dialect is considered in the analysis. A brief sketch of the verbal…

Examination of the phonological acquisition of a young girl whose parents spoke two Cantonese dialects indicated that she acquired neither parents' dialect, supporting the claim that children use all available input in acquiring language rather than limiting themselves to a primary language model. (Author/CB)

Summarizes contact-linguistic research on the Samis and Finns, the northernmost minorities in Scandinavia. The monolingual view of northern Scandinavian languages in the past is complemented with a multilingual perspective of the interaction between minority and larger languages. Among contact patterns discussed are North Germanic-Sami,…

Code switching is analyzed as part of a "familylect," which is code switching as it occurs in the spoken language of a multilingual family with four members. Seven different language codes are involved. Through a linguistic and extra-linguistic analysis, an attempt is made to answer three questions connected with code switching: when,…

In this volume, five working papers are presented. "Accessing Contexts with Intonation" (Thorstein Fretheim) discusses the use of intonation as a tool for understanding the context of an utterance, particularly in combination with reference. Examples are offered in Norwegian. In "'Altsa' and 'Nemlig': Two Views of Causality"…

Detailed analysis of frequencies of the primary auxiliary verb "be" in Scots dramatic texts leads to consideration of the typological relationship said to exist between different varieties of Scots and between them and standard English. (Author/CB)

The quantification of communication network integration provides valuable information for the study of language change in very small rural communities such as Grossdorf, Austria. The approach is particularly relevant when study of aggregate group behavior has failed to yield results due to small sample size or group internal inconsistency. (26…

The aim of this grammar is to analyze in some detail the mechanisms of the Aleut language as represented by older speakers and by earlier sources, and is intended for both students of Aleut and linguists in general. An introductory chapter gives background on the language's history, linguistic documentation, Aleut dialects, and outside influences.…