A collection of essays on aspects of pragmatics in non-Western cultures includes these papers: "Social Rank and Tunebo Requests" (Paul Headland); "The Use of Reported Speech in Saramaccan Discourse" (Naomi Glock); "An Analysis of Illocutionary Verbs in Walmatjari" (Joyce Hudson); "Please Be Specific: A Functional…

This paper discusses adaptation of the Total Physical Response technique, as used in a college German course, to the learning of grammar in high school second language courses. It is proposed that direct methods involving physical action can be used to teach and test production of almost any traditional grammar item and retain the motivational…

This study examines children's understanding of temporal markers and explores a strategy for teaching such understanding when it is absent. The original sample for this study consisted of 22 first graders and 85 kindergarten children. All subjects were individually pretested with the Temporal Marker Test (TMT) which evaluates performance on eight…

A curriculum is presented as part of a plan for improvinq English language instruction in secondary schools in Nigeria. The current status of English in Nigeria is viewed as ambiguous: the importance of English as a lingua franca and official language is contrasted with the neglect of English instruction and the failure to upgrade language…

THIS 11TH-GRADE LANGUAGE UNIT ON ADVERBIALS IS DESIGNED TO SHOW THAT THE TRANSFORMATION WHICH ACCOUNTS FOR THE EMBEDDING OF RELATIVE CLAUSES ALSO EXPLAINS THE PRESENCE OF ADVERBIAL CLAUSES, THEREBY REINFORCING THE PRINCIPLE THAT THERE ARE GENERAL RULES WHICH EXPLAIN ECONOMICALLY MANY COMPLEX LANGUAGE STRUCTURES. THE TEACHER VERSION FOR THE UNIT…

THIS DERIVED-ADJECTIVE UNIT FOR 11TH-GRADERS EXPLAINS THE UNDERLYING STRUCTURE OF SOME WORDS ENDING IN "-ING" AND "-EN" WHICH ARE DERIVED FROM VERBS AND USED IN NOUN PHRASES. THE TEACHER VERSION CONTAINS A SHORT OVERVIEW OF THE UNIT AND ANSWERS TO THE EXERCISES IN THE STUDENT VERSION. THE LATTER CONTAINS EXPLANATIONS AND…

This paper addresses itself to the way in which K'ekchi speakers identify the subject and the object in simple sentences. An attempt is made to determine: (1) whether K'ekchi has a basic word order, (2) the possible functions of any derived word order, and (3) whether there are any constraints on the logically possible word orders in K'ekchi. A…

This paper gives the results of a controlled experiment on word association. The purpose was to establish norms of commonality of primary descriptive adjective responses to common nouns. The stimuli consisted of 203 common nouns selected from 10 everyday topics of conversation, approximately 20 from each topic. There were 350 subjects, 50% male,…

The Swedish address system is in a state of rapid change. Consequently, Swedes are now more than ever sensitive to the seeming lack of generally accepted rules of usage. This paper attempts to codify the rules for usage of the personal pronouns "du" and "ni." In so doing, it finds that "du" may be used to express…

The reflexes of the proto-Bantu noun class prefixes of the form "mu-,""mi-," and "ma-" are compared in 84 Bantu languages. The hypotheses that syllabic nasals arise preferably from sequences of m + rounded high vowel, rather than m + unrounded high vowel, are tested against the data. The approach is an example of intragenetic comparison discussed…

Suggestions on how to improve apperception, motivation, and the presentation of materials in the teaching of Italian tenses, vocabulary, and famous names focus on the use of literary devices largely derived from folklore. For teaching tenses, the author illustrates the use of riddles, "passerotti", "filastrocche", songs, tongue-twisters, rebuses,…

An investigation was made of the effects of the removal of certain grammatical categories from standardized reading comprehension test paragraphs on the reading comprehension of 180 third, fourth, and fifth graders enrolled in a rural Georgia school system. Each grade level contained a high and low reading ability group, based on standardized…

This paper describes predicate adjective usage in modern standard Russian using a corpus of written Russian derived from "Pravda" (neutral literary style) and "Krokodil" (conversational material). The short, long nominative, and instrumental forms are examined in relation to the type of adjective, copulative verb, sentence subject, and other…

The "direct discourse analysis" introduced by Susumu Kuno is examined and found to be inadequate. To account for the data Kuno discusses, as well as for related data, a new approach to transformations is suggested. By determining the function, rather than the form, of a transformation, certain predictions are possible. Primary is the…

This textbook of Modern English combines a diachronic and synchronic approach to present a study of English syntax. The book attaches great importance to precise definitions of the various parts of speech and of their grammatical function, and provides a large number of idiomatic examples to illustrate rules and uses. Historical background is…