Visser (1973:1968) gives a long list of verbs “more or less incompatible” with the progressive that have this in common: in their general sense

The experiment reported on here investigating the syllabic attachment of post-vocalic nasals and l grew out of an earlier experiment which compared the post-vocalic liquids r and l (Laubstein 1989). Using the error elicitation technique described in Motley et al (1983), induced errors involving Vr and Vl sequences were compared. The two sequences behaved quite differently, suggesting different syllabic attachments for the two liquids. Vowel-r sequences consistently interacted with single vowels or vowel glide sequences and such sequences never split up, supporting the hypothesis (based on naturally occurring errors) that vowel-r sequences belong to a uni-positional peak constituent and supporting Kahn’s argument that English r, like w and y, is a glide (Kahn 1976). Vowel-l sequences, on the other hand, did split apart; errors involved the l alone or the vowel alone, significantly more often than they involved the r or V alone from Vr sequences (Wilcoxon p <.0001). This supported the hypothesis that the r and l belonged to different constituents. The relative frequency of errors is commonly assumed to reflect constituency. See, for instance, Stemberger and Treiman’s (1986) arguments regarding different positions in the onset. Nevertheless, such sequences also acted as single units, and in this respect behaved like vowel-r sequences. In addition, when such sequences were involved as a unit they interacted with single vowels or vowel glide sequences, suggesting that at some level of analysis they belonged to the same constituents as vowels. Speech errors which involve interactions between two items, or the substitution of one item for another, are in general structure-preserving. They involve units of the same constituent type at some level of analysis; for instance, noun phrase with noun phrase, preposition with preposition, verb with verb, and at the sub-lexical level, syllabic constituent type a with syllabic constituent type a (Laubstein 1987).

Naturalistic data are a useful source for language acquisition research. Recently, the emphasis has been placed on using denser corpora, in order to capture a more accurate picture of child language development. However, working with large amounts of data raises resource issues, since it is time-consuming to record and to transcribe. In this article, I focus on what would be the ideal duration of a naturalistic recording for it to be considered a representative enough sample of children's linguistic behaviours to observe the acquisition of words and sounds. Some of the results suggest that 30 minutes of recording may be enough to capture these specific developments, but these results are discussed in the perspective of what an ideal session could be.

The colonization of many parts of rural Manitoba got well under way in 1870. The arrival in the south of the province of numerous settlers, most of them from France, is an event of considerable importance in the history of the development of the Canadian west. Indeed, the colonization of Manitoba by French Catholics appeared to preoccupy greatly the St. Boniface diocese. Mgr. Taché remained convinced that St. Boniface ar.d St. Norbert would.cease to thrive unless linked to other cities and towns under the patronage of the church and extending to the very limits of the Saskatchewan boundary. Colonization seemed in many ways to be synonymous with Catholic evangelism, and the booklets distributed free of charge to the new settlers upon their arrival in the province did not fail to point out to them the advantages which they could obtain by settling near an established church, the symbol of Christian fraternity on the barren expanse of the uncultivated prairie.

The concepts of X-bar theory are fundamental to the framework of generative grammar. The last version of the theory (Chomsky 1992) defines the projected positions as either narrowly or broadly L(exically)-related to the head X, where “L-relation” means inclusion in the checking domain of X. Narrowly L-related positions, nonadjoined (e.g., Spec), obey structure preserving rules; they have the basic properties of A-positions. Broadly L-related positions, adjoined and optional, have the properties of A’-positions.

Thirty years ago the leitmotif of ethnology and linguistics was militant relativism. It was emphasized that each culture and each language is a world of its own with its own elements and arrangements, its own standards, and its own laws. It was often, though not always, clearly recognized that, running across the differences, there were points of agreement among different systems. In the effort to avoid ethnocentrically based errors, the principle of generalization itself was sometimes atrophied.

In the matter of research technique, openmindedness was emphasized. The field-worker was urged to gather plentiful evidence before drawing any conclusions. In matters of phonology it was recommended that one write exactly what one heard. Now, one of the positive fruits of the relativist epoch was the development of the idea of structure, the gestalt principle, and, in the study of sounds, phonemics. This means that not until one has discovered the system is he in a position to perceive sounds adequately. And something of the same kind is applicable in other phases of language. In dropping the illusion of objective non-phonemic recording there was opened up a short-cut to the laborious collection of unorganized facts.

This paper provides evidence for the activity of the Obligatory Contour Principle (OCP) as a constraint on dynamic alternations in the synchronic grammar of Qatari Arabic. It shows that the OCP is subject to proximity and to a gradient similarity effect. In Qatari Arabic, there are two variable phonological alternations that interact with the OCP, affrication and lenition. The velar stops /g/ and /k/ affricate to [ʤ] and [ʧ], respectively, when adjacent to [i(:)]. However, affrication is blocked when the outcome includes a sequence of segments that are highly similar. Lenition applies variably to the phoneme /ʤ/, which surfaces as [ʤ] or [j]. Usually, the probability of lenition applying to its eligible candidates is around the level of chance. The process, however, applies categorically when a violation of the OCP would otherwise be incurred. The data are analyzed within the framework of Optimality Theory.

Après avoir examiné successivement l’usage de l’auxiliaire avoir ou être au passé composé et plus que parfait et l’usage de la préposition POUR (Mougeon et Carroll, 1976; Canale, Mougeon, Bélanger, Ituen, 1976), nous allons dans la présente étude décrire l’usage de SUR et DESSUS dans le français parlé et écrit d’élèves bilingues fréquentant des écoles secondaires de langue française à Sudbury, Welland et dans le canton de Rayside/Azilda. Notre description se fera par rapport à plusieurs normes: le français standard, le français de l’Ontario formel écrit et le français parlé par les jeunes Québécois unilingues, ce afin de mieux cerner les caractéristiques de l’usage des jeunes Franco-ontariens. Avant de rentrer dans le détail de notre étude, nous allons brièvement exposer certaines des règles d’usage du français standard concernant SUR et DESSUS. Ceci servira d’arrière plan à l’analyse des résultats de notre étude.

Although minor details still remain to be worked out, the grammatical relationship between the sentence in Column I and the noun phrases in Column II of (1) below is considered beyond doubt. Lees, in his monograph (1960:85-94), formulated first explicit transformational rules to account for the grammatical relationship observed between the sentence (a) and the two noun phrases, one with a relative clause (b), the other with an attributive adjective (c).

The ways in which the vowel system of Vulgar Latin (VL) differs from that of Classical Latin (CL) have been well documented. These differences arise from historical innovations including:

• (1) the monophthongization of the diphthongs [oj] œ and [aj] œ to [ē] and respectively,

• (2) the lowering of the short vowels to respectively, and the consequent introduction of a new phonemic degree of vowel height for the front unrounded and back rounded vowels,

• (3) the neutralization of the phonemic CL length differences, all stressed vowels now being long whatever the length of their CL source, and all unstressed vowels being short, and

• (4) the introduction of phonemic stress, since the position of stress is no longer synchronically predictable because of the neutralization of vowel length mentioned in (3).

L’évolution du modal should s’est caractérisée par l’émergence progressive d’une interprétation non-déontique en construction hypotaxique. En effet, certaines constructions comportant should, du type It is surprising that he should say that, révèle un conflit sur une valeur construite ; celle-ci n’est alors plus repérée comme «effective» mais comme «fictive», et est considérée comme inattendue. Cette contribution se propose d’analyser le lien entre représentation attendue/inattendue et interaction de marqueurs hypotaxiques. L’examen d’exemples authentiques d’anglais contemporain révèle, en effet, la coexistence de plusieurs formes après la séquence It is + adjectif de valuation : constructions en for … to, propositions introduites par that (ou ∅) comportant should ou une forme assertée ou une base verbale. Il s’agit de montrer les différences de repérages entre ces formes et de rendre compte de l’apparition de l’une plutt que de l’autre en contexte.

The impact of anatomical transformations on the acquisition of sounds by infants remains poorly understood. Using the Variable Linear Articulator? Model, we simulate vowel production in the course of non-uniform vocal tract growth. Production abilities related to vocal tract growth are described by simulating French vowels, generated by assuming that sensori-motor control abilities are identical in newborns and adults. Despite small vocal tract size, an infant is able to produce all the vowels of its first language. The recurrence of certain units in the babbling inventory is attributable to motor control immaturity and cognitive abilities. Simulation of articulatory fibers provides a more accurate view of the relation between articulatory strategies and acoustic targets. The results highlight differences relative to labial and lingual articulators.

The derivational system of Sechelt (Coast Salish) includes stative formations serving a variety of functions, one of which is the indication of possession in certain constructions. A sampling of stative forms is offered here, along with observations on their derivation. The purpose of this study is to propose, on the basis of such a survey, a generalized conceptual definition of the stative aspect in Sechelt and to suggest reasons for certain restrictions in the use of statives in possessive structures.

The purpose of this paper is to show that the term “palatal” has been used with various meanings and to redefine or establish a consistency of terminology concerning this term with respect to palatalized and central consonants. Confusion arising from the various divisions of the tongue into articulators and from the misuse of the above articulatory terms has led to incorrect phonological solutions.

The status of Russian palatalized and palatal consonants has been under discussion recently. Dunatov claims in a recent article that Russian palatal consonants cannot be palatalized and suggests three different orders of palatals to distinguish “the three articulatory sets of palatals encountered in the Slavic languages”: pre-palatal, medio-palatal, and post-palatal. However, he fails to state the distribution of them in Russian or the other Slavic languages.

In this study, we examined to what extent cross-linguistic influence is observed in the production of unstressed vowels in Mexican learners of L2 English and L3 Russian. Phonological spectral vowel reduction is a widespread process present in both English and Russian, but not in Spanish. In total, 18 Mexican learners, six American speakers, five Russian speakers and six Mexican speakers performed a delayed word repetition task and a sentence completion task. Euclidean distances and temporal values were measured to assess vowel reduction in 1,192 tokens. Mexican learners showed hybrid values of vowel reduction in both foreign languages: while they tended to use quality cues in the case of the L2, they relied on duration cues in the case of the L3. Our results do not show any direct evidence of cross-linguistic influence of temporal values or vowel quality from the L1 or the L2 on the L3. We examine these findings in light of similar studies and current L3 acquisition models.

Cet article propose une analyse comparée des styles conversationnels des néerlandophones et des francophones de Belgique tels qu'ils se présentent dans déux debats télévisés comparables diffusés sur les deux chaînes de télévision publiques beiges (l'une néerlandophone, l'autre francophone). L'étude des marqueurs discursifs fonctionnant comme «ouvreurs» ainsi que I'étude de la gestion des tours de parole, et notamment des chevauchements, font apparaître un style plus pondéré pour les néerlandophones et aussi plus hésitant et plus consensuel que le style francophone, les données pour le français confirmant ainsi ce qui a déjà été observé pour le style conversationnel des locuteurs franàais (de France).