Three experiments examined the ability of 60 3-year-old children's ability to select homonym pairs and the extent to which they realized that homonyms represent 2 different categories. Results confirm that children have the metalinguistic skills necessary to identify homonym pairs and to realize they represent two different categories, suggesting…

Reviews several studies which suggest that some second-language (L2) learners stumble into rogue or "wild" grammars on the road to the L2. L2 learners who have subcategorization knowledge of verbs for their prepositions often omit those same prepositions in relative clauses and questions requiring pied-piping or preposition stranding.…

Defines the concept of deconstruction as a theory of language and reading. Discusses its relationship to the teaching of English. (HB)

Attempts to formulate an appropriate linguistic generalization for the occurrence of inhibited periodic eyeblinking by fluent American Sign Language (ASL) signers. It is shown that signers' eyeblinks are sensitive to syntactic structure, from which intonational phrases may be derived. (19 references) (MDM)

Examines research on adult second-language learning in regard to the proposal that reflexive verbs move in logical form (LF). The results of a study of 58 adult learners of Japanese show that learners' knowledge of the reflexive "zibun" at a high-proficiency level is consistent with the LF approach. (Contains 43 references.) (MDM)

Critiques the previous article by Torigoe and others (1995) and discusses research on indigenous gestural systems developed by people with deafness and shared with local hearing communities. Poses questions for further research in the field of indigenous gestural communication. (Seven references) (MDM)

Finds that temporal markers modify the availability of preceding words: segmentation markers like "around two o'clock" and "then" reduce this availability, whereas continuity markers like "and" improve this availability. Supports the hypothesis that segmentation markers lead readers not to integrate new information…

Provides a retrospective of the research of Walter Loban. Discusses the primacy of oral language, language development, and the interrelationships between oral and written language in his research. (RS)

The focus of this paper is the acquisition of the verb "eat." The transcripts of 40 children who were audiotaped monthly from 1;0 to 3;0, showed that "eat" was the first member of this verb class to be acquired. (16 references) (JL)

Examines perspectives from which foreign language anxiety research has been conducted, the instruments that have been used, and the results that have been reported. Three approaches to the study of anxiety are identified as trait, state, and situation specific perspectives. (68 references) (VWL)

Describes the social situations and attitudes of speakers of Dyirbal in addition to changing language identifications, and reports on Dyirbal contract in lexical and grammatical complexity as it has moved toward an inevitable extinction. (11 references) (GLR)

The assumption that only males use derogatory and taboo words is challenged by citing evidence that young females in South Africa widely use highly taboo/slang items. Particular attention is devoted to pejorative words common to both males and females and to whether there are only a few pejorative words used to describe males. (30 references) (JL)

The nature of scrambling in Japanese is examined in light of the work of Webelhuth and Mahajan, and it is argued that their apparently inconsistent hypotheses are both necessary for the analysis of scrambling. A modified version is suggested. (59 references) (Author/LB)

Focuses on intrasentential codeswitching among locally born inhabitants of Brussels, Belguim. The disappearance of intrasentential codeswitching is shown to be related to knowledge of standard Dutch. Apart from this, intrasentential codeswitching is probably no longer a generalized practice in Brussels because the codes involved symbolize social…

Examines societies in which varieties and degrees of literacy are possible or ordinary, such as Japan and Korea. Finds that these societies have separate but functionally interrelated writing systems, used for communicatively disparate purposes, differential mastery of which, consequently, has social and economic repercussions. Finds that…