The languages of Nigeria and language usage in that country are discussed in a study designed to illustrate the need for a Nigerian lingua franca. Extensive data are first presented on Nigerian languages and dialects, their classification, and their geographic distribution. The remainder of the survey is devoted to a sociolinguistic study of…

"Done" occurs outside of the participle paradigm in several varieties of English particularly those associated currently or historically with the South. This feature is also found in Appalachian English. Grammatical classifications have been proposed, including that of quasi-modal, pre-verbal form, and adverb. None of the labelling…

Traditional grammars are criticized as having obscured or omitted many significant features of negation patterns in classical Greek. The author demonstrates that negation in Greek extensively involves semantic and syntactic factors. Certain of the factors are thoroughly embedded in the traditional approach to grammar, while others are derived from…

This survey of the world's written languages consists of a series of historical sketches of different languages, each including a table of signforms in their standard order and their variations, but focusing primarily on how the sounds of the language are represented in writing. A brief text in the language(s) the script is used for is also…

This serial is intended as a forum for the presentation, in print, of the latest original research by the faculty and students of the Department of Linguistics and other related departments at the University of Kansas. Papers are as follows: "Interpreting St. Clair's Comanche Texts: Objective Case Marking and 'Same Subject' Dependent…

IN AN EARLIER ARTICLE (ALSO PUBLISHED IN THE FLORIDA FOREIGN LANGUAGE REPORTER) THE AUTHOR CITED EVIDENCE FOR BELIEF THAT THE NEGRO FIELD SLAVES "SPOKE A VARIETY OF ENGLISH WHICH WAS IN FACT A TRUE CREOLE LANGUAGE" AND THAT STRUCTURAL TRACES OF THIS CREOLE PREDECESSOR MAY BE HEARD TODAY IN THE NONSTANDARD ENGLISH SPEECH PATTERNS OF AMERICAN…

This volume is a report of the methodology employed by the Detroit Dialect Study staff in their survey of Detroit speech, 1966-67. As a study of one approach to sociolinguistic fieldwork, this report is descriptive rather than theoretical "in order to provide a practical basis for large-scale urban language study." The authors discuss…

A word list is provided for the three Delta Edo languages, Epie, Engenni, and Degema, which are spoken in the eastern part of the Niger Delta. A general map of the location of the Delta Edo languages is provided, and background information on the recent discovery of the derivation of these languages is given by way of introduction. The…

The basis for understanding the origin, development, and behavior of language is presented in this introduction to linguistic science. Aspects of language that link linguistics to anthropology, social studies, and mathematics are examined. Major emphasis is on phonetics and phonemics, historical considerations, vocabulary, and semantic change.…

This paper discusses research and developments in the study of Papuan languages, a designation formerly used to group those languages which were geographically close to, but structurally quite different from, the Austronesian languages; the grouping had nothing to do with relationships among the Papuan languages themselves. Increasing knowledge…

An examination of the linguistics of American Sign Language (ASL) establishes beyond a doubt that ASL is a natural language distinct from English and provides insight into how the abstract cognitive system called language finds expression in the signed modality. (CB)

Discusses the relative merits of feature versus model based semantics for the interpretation of verb phrases in English, French, and German. The article concludes that the simplicity afforded by features is offset by the depth of analysis achieved with event models that are additionally able to support a sophisticated approach to machine…

How would translators approach a process in which they have to make decisions on mapping the grammatically enforced regular number mechanism of a language such as English onto a system like Japanese, where there is no regular coding of number in a noun phrase? Utilizing the concepts of motivation for representation of number, and of "formal-shift"…

The working papers by students and professors of linguistics on research in progress include the following: "Are Cariban Languages Moving Away From or Towards Ergative Systems?" (Desmond D. Derbyshire); "A Double-Verb Construction in Mbya Guarani" (Robert A. Dooley); "Semantically Ergative Languages in Typological…

An analysis of languages with multiple fronting of WH words (who, what, whom, etc.) looks in detail at Polish, Serbo-Croatian, Czech, Bulgarian (Slavic languages), and Romanian (a Romance language). In spite of their superficial similarity, the Slavic and East European languages that normally put all WH words at the beginning of clauses fall into…