This dissertation is a description of Xinaliq, a Northeast (Nakh-Daghestanian) Caucasian language spoken primarily in the village also called Xinaliq, which lies at an elevation of 7,000 feet in the Kuba district of Azerbaijan, near the border with Daghestan. Currently there are approximately 1,500 residents in the village. Most of them are…

In Sundanese, a western Austronesian language, speech levels allow the speaker to establish social identity through talk alone, using multiple linguistic forms with very different pragmatic meanings. These words are deference and demeanor indexicals, as in the French formal versus informal second person. It is argued that although they do exist,…

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…

Conversational data from a native speaker of European Portuguese from the island of Faial were analyzed to determine segmental and prosodic contexts favoring unstressed vowel deletion. Factors such as rhythmic preservation, syllable structure, and functional load are discounted in the analysis, suggesting vowel deletion is essentially a word-based…

Differing approaches toward discourse result in difficulty and confusion when Asians and Westerners communicate in English. In Chinese, Korean, or Japanese discourse, topics are usually introduced inductively; topic introduction is delayed and indirect. Conversely, English-speaking Westerners introduce topics early in a conversation. This…

A study analyzed the structure of negative sentences in the Thai language, based on data gathered from two native speakers. It is shown that the Thai negative marker generally occurs between the noun phrase (subject) and the verb phrase in simple active sentences and in passive sentences. Negation of noun phrases is also allowed in Thai, with a…

Explores similarities and differences in native- and second- language referential communication through review of an experiment in which native Dutch speakers described unconventional abstract shapes first in Dutch and then in English. Subjects exhibited a preference, in both languages, for describing shapes in a holistic rather than segmental…

Analyzes the use of metapragmatic description in the ethnoclassification of language by native speakers on the Franco-Antillean island of Saint Barthelemy. A prevalent technique for metapragmatic description based on honorific pronouns that reflects the varied geolinguistic and generational attributes of the speakers is described. (Author/MSE)

A study of Chinese logograph recognition investigated: (1) whether word-length effect is generalizable to Chinese readers in recognizing context-free logographic characters; (2) whether readers from mainland China would outperform readers from Taiwan when each group read its own familiar logograph version; (3) whether both groups would perform…

A study investigated the existence of a definite article in Montagnais, an Algonquian language spoken by about 6,000 Canada natives. The language has not yet been totally described, and teachers, who must create their own instructional materials for Montagnais language instruction, are unsure as to whether to teach their own usage or what they are…

The speech of five native English-speakers and five native Japanese-speaking learners of English as a Second Language was analyzed for use of "will" and "going to" in certain contexts. Subjects were asked to tell their summer plans and to express their expectations of changes in Japan and the United States in the next few years. Results indicate…

Analysis of recordings of spontaneous speech of native speakers of Quechua speaking Spanish as a second language reveals that, using verbal morphological resources of Spanish, they have grammaticalized an epistemic marking system resembling that of Quechua. Sources of this process in both Quechua and Spanish are analyzed. (MSE)

This study investigated the relationship between ideology and speech patterns in Modern Israeli Hebrew. Eighty native speakers of university age were provided with descriptions of events in which some desired object or information was the goal, then asked what they would say to attain the goal and to construct examples of stylized uses of speech…

The grammar of the St. Lawrence Island/Siberian Yupik Eskimo language was written for college-level classes containing a mixture of Yupik speakers and non-speakers, and for students learning the language on their own. It uses only the Central Siberian Yupik dialect spoken on St. Lawrence Island (Alaska) and on a small portion of the Asian…

A study investigated the ways in which native and non-native speakers of Kiswahili close conversations. Native speaker data were obtained from observation and field notes, recorded face-to-face interactions, recorded telephone conversations, reconstructed dialogues, and televised plays. Non-native speaker (American) data were drawn from role-play…