Linguistics is the empirical study of language; linguistic philosophy is an approach to understanding the underlying nature of the phenomena that linguists study. The discussion here of linguistic philosophy is designed for linguists, but presupposes no prior acquaintance with either the philosophy of language or linguistic theory. It is concerned…

The structures of quantifier phrases in Thai are studied in the X-Syntax framework. Syntactic and semantic arguments are provided to prove that this model remedies the deficiency of traditional and early transformational grammar as it provides insightful analyses based on distinctions between intermediate level nodes that display internal…

This paper discusses Role and Reference Grammar (RRG), which is a structuralist-formalist theory of grammar. RRG grew out of an attempt to answer two fundamental questions: (1) what would linguistic theory look like if it were based on the analysis of Lakhota, Tagalog, and Dyirbal, rather than on the analysis of English?; and (2) how can the…

This study examined word meanings in the single word period of language learning. Ten children were seen for 5 hours each month from the time they started learning language until their median length of utterance was 2.5 words. All the children's utterances, and the extralinguistic contexts of the utterances, such as objects and movements, were…

A study investigated the validity of a linking rule of object affectedness; the rule states that an argument is expressed as the direct object of a verb if its referent is specified as affected in a specific way in the semantic representation of the verb. Specifically, the study examined whether the principle determines which argument will be…

Two instances of unaccusative verb mismatches in Japanese are examined. An unaccusative mismatch is the situation in which a different accusative diagnostic singles out different classes of intransitive verbs within and across languages. One type of unaccusative mismatch has to do with group C verbs, or verbs of manner with protagonist control.…

A study investigated one segment of toponymy, the study of place names, in Quebec. The first chapter discusses the nature, functions, and functioning of place names from a semiotic-logico-linguistic viewpoint. Chapter two describes the corpus and methodology of the study. Over 900 occurrences of "anse," the French word for…

To investigate semantic and syntactic variables in the written language of normally hearing and hearing impaired children, 49 hearing impaired and 49 normally hearing children (10-14 years old) were asked to write compositions based on the Accident/Emergency Picture in the Peabody Language Development Kit. In addition, syntactic characteristics…

The impact of various definitions of the term "policy" on the nature and outcomes of policy analysis is illustrated by noting a variety of definitions which are implied in the literature. These definitions are applied to exemplar policy arenas to note their differential effect. The policy arenas discussed include the community…

The findings of this study indicate that students can be taught to avoid specified verbal operations which block problem-solving processes without detriment to the processes themselves. (RC)

The present study investigated the structure of categories and concepts in psychological research and the nature of mental representations in general. (Author/RK)

Rosch replied to the previous article in this edition of the Journal of Experimental Psychology and its evaluation of her research on the Cognitive Representations of Semantic Categories. (RK)

Discusses the derivation, meaning and both past and present uses of the Spanish verb "haber." The verb refers to relationships of possession, duration and existence, and is used as an auxiliary. Extant derivative forms of the verb in other languages and earlier Spanish meanings are noted. (Text is in Spanish.) (CHK)

Defines and explains Alfred Korzybski's theories about general semantics and suggests educational applications. (RB)

Personal/impersonal negative sentence pairs in Russian are discussed. It is concluded that the structural differences in personal and impersonal negative sentences correspond to a difference in meaning: the absence of the object in general versus the absence of a given, specified object. (Author/RM)