Linguists use the concept of "diglossia" to describe any sociolinguistic situation where a low-prestige dialect coexists with a high-prestige one and these dialects are used in different social spheres. Recent observations on Reunion Island have challenged this view because people mix French and Creole extensively in the same utterance…

The loss of the copula in Black English Vernacular (BEV) is demonstrably traceable to norms of pidginization that have their roots in West African languages and in contact among those languages. An extensive examination of the verb systems of a number of West African languages reveals that in every case a variety of verbal forms serves the many…

This report is an overview of some of the common features of African languages. It is difficult to present a concise and comprehensive summary of the features that are likely to be found in a group of languages as large and as totally unrelated as are the one to two thousand languages found on the continent of Africa. Therefore, representative…

An integrated analysis of the syntax and semantics of serial verb constructions (SVCs) in a group of West African languages is presented. With data from Dagaare and closest relatives, a structural definition for SVCs is developed (two or more lexical verbs that share grammatical categories within a clause), establishing SVCs as complex predicates.…

Argues for a fundamental structural similarity between serial verb constructions, widely known from Kwa languages, and v-v compounds in Japanese. A major theoretical implication of the analysis is that it supports an analysis of clausal structure where the external argument is not included in the immediate projection of a verb but is introduced by…

The positional definition of Hausa noun and verb, which uses person and aspect markers "y, s, and t" as criteria, is criticized as an unreliable framework for identification of nouns and verbs. It is proposed that this is so for nouns because a word may appear as a noun without any of the three markers. Verbs are more central than the…

Papers on language research include: "L'expression de l'opposition en Latin" ("The Expression of Opposition in Latin" (Claude Begin); "Le francais de l'Abitibi: characteristiques phonetiques et origine socio-geographique des locuteurs" ("The French of Abitibi: Phonetic Characteristics and Socio-Geographic Origin…

This is the tenth annual issue of the UCLA TESL (teaching English as a second language) workpapers. It includes the following papers: (1) "An Attempt to Model the Role of Cognitions in Language Learning," by R.L. Allwright; (2) "A Comparison of Language Proficiency Tests," by J. Donald Bowen; (3) "Language Study Through…

This bulletin contains articles of interest to persons and institutions engaged in teaching English for special purposes (ESP) and allied activities. "Developments in ESP Courses and Centres" gives information on programs in specialized English and French. "Teaching and Learning Materials" presents techniques for teaching…

Thirty-five papers, all but one in French, presented at the conference on research in linguistics are presented here. Topics include: verb tenses in English; computerized text analysis program; study of specialized terminology; court translation in Canada; subject-verb agreement in English; bilingual editing; swearing with religious words;…