An analysis of Kilega, a Bantu language spoken in eastern Zaire, focuses on the relative positions of subject and verb and agreement patterns, with particular attention to WH-movement. It is found that Kilega is a subject-verb-object language, but exhibits some variant patterns. WH-movement triggers verb-subject inversion and shifts agreement. The…

The relationship between turn-regulation, the phonetic features of pitch, and loudness is examined in a study of two recorded natural conversations in Akan. Analysis of patterns in turn-delimitation suggests that (1) diminuendo loudness, a low pitch height, and falling pitch movement are treated by turn-occupants and their co-participants as…

A study of reciprocals in Japanese compares two kinds: (1) a verbal suffix "aw"; and (2) an NP argument "otagai." Although "otagai" appears to be taken care of by syntactic binding theory, it is proposed that there is no evidence for the existence of a syntactic position of the object NP in the case of "aw." The suffix can be characterized as…

Recent proposals concerning the relationship between thematic structure and syntactic structure, including the idea of thematic hierarchy, when used with certain language-specific properties, offer insight into some problems concerning the Mandarin Chinese phrase structure condition (PSC). The PSC is such that the internal structure of XP contains…

Results are described of a study of vocalizations of two female infants, classified as cry, discomfort, and vegetative sounds, recorded between one and eight weeks of age. The implications for later speech development are discussed. (Author/RM)

Clitics are explained through the interplay of different levels of language in performance. It is shown that clitic movement can be blocked on phonological ground, and accusative marked by "shwa" follows, rather than precedes, a clitic segment containing a back vowel--"vous le" or "nous le". (SCC)

Weak forms belong to the realm of sentence phonetics. Syntactic and phonetic conditions for the various appearances of weak forms are discussed. Two examples show how much of a role weak forms have played in FL teaching. Comparisons with English are made. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

American Italian exhibits interference from English in loanwords, loanblends, loanshift extensions and loan translations, and some of these are analyzed in this paper. (CK)

It is proposed that syntactic processes (rules and constraints) may have a semantic basis. Evidence is presented that the constraint against backward pronominalization with indefinite antecedents derives from the semantic properties of various classes of definite noun phrases. (CK)

Stresses the importance of verbal elaboration when discussing general semantics in the presence of a neophyte, pointing out that definitional or illustrative emendations attached to mnemonic devices may be particularly useful to the listener. (Author/RB)

Aspects of the language in the Watergate tapes are examined. (JH)

"Tilin Garcia," a novel by Cuban author Carlos Enriquez, reveals many regional expressions of the province of Camaguey, Cuba. This linguistic study of the novel examines some of the colorful vocabulary and its literal and figurative meanings. (Text is in Spanish.) (CK)

A discussion of autosegmental phonology (AP), a theory of phonological representation that uses graphs rather than strings as the central data structure, considers its principal constraint, the "No Crossing Constraint" (NCC). The NCC is the statement that in a well-formed autosegmental diagram, lines of association may not cross. After…

Full verbs and auxiliaries are subject to gapping. In the simplest cases, this construction type involves apparent ellipsis within one or more clausal conjuncts under identity with the finite verb or auxiliary of a preceding conjunct. It has often been suggested that the apparent ellipsis must involve at least a verb. Some researchers see in the…

Some answers to the question of why one cultural pattern is transmitted while another is not, and a consideration of the process of cultural transmission and acquisition, are provided in this examination of the cultural and linguistic situation of the Filipino American population of the Milwaukee, Wisconsin, area. The discussion is divided into…