This paper reports on a study done at the University of Texas at San Antonio to examine the extent of compoundness or coordinateness with respect to the language use of Spanish-English speaking bilinguals in the Southwest. The long-range purpose was to delve into the more theoretical issue of the kinds of bilingual functioning. The discussion is divided into the following sections: (1) the compound-coordinate dimension--the history of the study of this concept and the difficulty of defining the distinction between compound bilinguals and coordinate bilinguals; (2) acquisitional and societal patterns--how the place and manner of the acquisition of the two languages affects the degree of compoundness or coordinateness; and (3) description and analysis of the data--the subjects, the instruments used, and the results, which are summarized in tables appended to the report. The experiment suggests that: (1) UTSA Chicanos fall, by and large, into the category of compound bilinguals, (2) their compoundness is a result of a fairly high degree of acculturation into the dominant society, and (3) the diglossic behavior of the older generation is in the process of changing into a more random-bilingual one in the younger generation. (Author/TL)