Notes that the "Comparative Austronesian Dictionary" (CAD) is one of a series of comparative dictionaries planned to cover the major world language families. The CAD provides detailed information on 80 languages and additional data on the history of the Austronesian (AN) languages. Adds that the CAD gives reliable citations in a broad…

Discusses the varieties of Liberian English spoken in Liberia: Kru Pidgin English, spoken by Kru mariners and migrant workers; Settler English, spoken by descendants of 19th-century African American immigrants to Liberia; and Vernacular Liberian English (VLE), spoken by the rest of Liberia's English-speaking population. Focuses on tense aspect in…

Outlines recent and past debates on literacy pedagogy. Contends that more students are more highly literate today than ever before. Describes the following literacy pedagogy "ages": the age of reading as decoding; the age of reading as meaning making; the age of reading-writing connections; and the age of reading for social purpose.…

Challenges the prevalent misconception among many students that the grammatical gender system of Spanish is transparent. Data concerning the number of exceptions in gender assignment in Spanish is presented along with samples of student production. (VWL)

Presents action research in the classroom that involves a semantic feature analysis task to help students develop reasoning skills. (YDS)

Investigates the pragmatic functions of topicalizing subject (S) and object (O) in Standard Arabic and attempts to find a functional explanation for the occasional preposing/topicalization of S and/or O over the verb (V) to yield a construction in the form of SVO order or any other order sanctioned by the rules of Arabic grammar. (22 references)…

Examines the technical vocabulary of genetics as a source of error and confusion. Suggests that it is necessary to identify different types of problems associated with terminology and to organize them into logical classes to deal effectively with the difficulties. Highlights terms misused in textbooks. (RT)

Cultivation of an understanding of puns and plays on words in French language instruction is advocated as a method of teaching phonology, exposing students to French culture, and heightening awareness of the students' native and second languages. Specific approaches are suggested. (MSE)

Discusses the interpretation of nominal compounds in the context of natural language processing for information retrieval. Knowledge-intensive algorithms that can successfully interpret compounds found in technical documents are described, and experiments are reported that indicate these algorithms may be unnecessary for improving retrieval…

A work entitled "Suicide" by Louis Aragon is used to illustrate how the reader must create the meaning of a poem. (MSE)

Focuses on the infiltration of English into the French language. The article covers terms belonging to one of three levels of acceptability and perception: (1) terms that have been in the French language for a long period; (2) terms that have recently gained a foothold in the language; and (3) terms that still escape the notice of dictionaries.…

Researchers have emphasized the similarity of the semantic and self-report mood circumplexes. Study investigated systematic differences in theses structures. Demonstrated that when making judgments of their mood, people weigh the arousal dimension less than the valence dimension. Dimensions are weighed equally in semantic structure. (JBJ)

The grammars of natural languages may be learned by using genetic algorithm systems such as LUST (Linguistics Using Sexual Techniques) that reproduce and mutate grammatical rules and parts-of-speech tags. In document retrieval or filtering systems, applying tags to the list of terms representing a document provides additional information about…

Reports on two experiments investigating the relationship between topical subject expertise and the assessment of relevance. Results indicate that topical subject expertise enhances effects of the semantic distance model (SDM), and that relevance assessment is a contingent, psychological phenomenon that is part of the human-perception task of…

Introduces a framework for comparing and evaluating knowledge representation schemes based on the requirements for "good" representation discussed in extant literature. Comparative analysis and evaluation of four popular knowledge representation schemes--Logic, Production Rules, Semantic Nets and Frames--are discussed in support of validity and…