This brief survey directs attention to certain problems involved in assigning together linguistic units (grouping) and in showing by such assignment degrees of genetic relationship (subgrouping). It deals with these topics only with regard to relatively large-scale classificatory units in North American Indian languages. It notes research and cites literature, largely from the past decade, in which reference to and citation of earlier work may be found. And it has omitted mention or discussion of certain recent classificatory proposals for which evidence is not adduced or for which existence of a reproducible method is not clear.

Many pairs of words traditionally treated as crosslinguistic equivalents do not share the same set of senses, and dominant theories fail to account for this asymmetry. This article proposes an explanation for the crosslinguistic variation of polysemy based on two key insights from Bouchard's Sign Theory of Language. First, multifunctional words have only a single, abstract meaning, and second, properties of the linguistic sign follow from properties of the external systems with which language interfaces. The article describes the content of the English and French deictic verbs go, aller, come, and venir, showing that each possesses a simple semantic representation composed of primitives from general cognition. It then examines several specific semantic uses of go and aller, showing that differences in the surface polysemy of these verbs follow directly from a single difference in their abstract lexical meaning and the way the latter interacts with context, extralinguistic knowledge and grammar.

As an alternative to the high-low-front-back model of vowel specification, the laryngeal articulator model is proposed, based on a reinterpretation of how the vocal tract functions to produce laryngeal and pharyngeal sounds. Evidence drawn from numerous laryngoscopic studies demonstrates the scope of articulatory behaviours possible in the pharynx. For a broad sample of languages, lingual retraction is shown to accompany laryngeal/pharyngeal gestures, motivating the redistribution of vowel quality designations. The vocal tract is divided into two articulatory components: the laryngeal articulator and the oral articulator. The vowel chart is split into three sectors: front, raised, and retracted. Whereas front vowels can be qualified as close or open, so-called back vowels are re-designated as either raised or retracted, and the role of retraction as a function of the laryngeal constrictor mechanism is elaborated.

Cet Article a pour but d’esquisser la description phonologique d’un dialecte franco-canadien au moyen de la théorie descriptive d’André Martinet.

La Communauté De Maillardville: Histoire. La communauté de Maillardville n’est en réalité ni une ville ni un village, mais plutôt un quartier de la municipalité de Coquitlam, en Colombie Britannique. La municipalité, située à quelque vingt milles de Vancouver, compte 32.000 habitants, d’origine anglaise, suédoise, italienne, allemande, et canadienne-française; ces derniers se sont établis en un groupe homogène d’environ 6.000, dans le coin sud-ouest de la municipalité, pour former Maillardville.

Theoretical accounts of Greek compounds argue for a close relation between their stress properties and their underlying structure. Compounds that preserve and receive stress at the same position as their second constituent are analyzed as stem-word constructions, while those that receive antepenultimate stress are viewed as belonging to the stem-stem category. Using an auditory lexical decision task, we examine the effect of stress change on the processing of compounds in the light of existing theoretical linguistic accounts. Although our experimental results do not reach statistical significance, we believe that they are informative of the cognitive status and role of stress in compound processing. Finally, they relate to existing theories of compounding in Greek and reflect the complex interaction of the psycholinguistic effects of stress and the structural properties of these constructions.

This article describes the realization of nasal vowels in the southeast of France. Southeastern French retains four nasal vowels , contrary to more innovative varieties of French. The perceptual analysis based on eight participants shows that, for most of the instances of each of the four nasal vowels, the pronunciation is different from that of Reference French. Additionally, these nasal vowels are followed by a nasal closure in about 10% of cases, especially in front of a pause or stop. The perceptual analysis is supplemented by an acoustic description, based on two speakers, one male and one female. The acoustic description gives support to the perceptual analysis, showing the existence of the nasal closure and the realization of /ã/ as [ã], as [ẽ], and /õ/ as .

Aoun and Li (2003) argued that whether the head of Chinese relative clauses can reconstruct at Logical Form is determined by its phrasal category. When the head is a noun phrase, it can reconstruct; but when it is a quantifier phrase, it cannot. This paper uses a sentence-picture matching experiment to investigate this claim. The results showed that a quantifier phrase can reconstruct. Thus, we do not need to stipulate a noun phrase/quantifier phrase distinction for the reconstruction of heads in Chinese relative clauses. Both types of phrases can reconstruct, predicted by the head-raising analysis of relative clauses.

The following is an account of glottalization and gemination in the traditional vernacular of the Greater Bolton area. Bolton is a town situated 12 miles north-west of Manchester in northwestern England. The Greater Bolton area consists of the county borough of Bolton, Farnworth municipal borough, and the urban districts of Horwich, Turton, Little Lever and Kearsley. Its population is approximately 230,000.

From a consideration of various historical, industrial, economic, social and administrative factors, the Greater Bolton area can be shown to be a relatively homogeneous cultural unit within the urban field of influence of Bolton. This cultural homogeneity is reflected in the speech of the area, which is also relatively homogeneous in character, and distinctive when compared to the speech of other parts of Greater Manchester County, South Lancashire and Merseyside (cf. Shorrocks 1980:1–27).

G. L. Piggott’s paper “Implications of linguistic change for concrete phonology” does not present diachronic evidence in favor of a theory of phonology with abstract representations and derivations, as it claims, but rather reconstructs a hypothetical sequence of events. This reconstruction is based on a theory of phonology; that is, Piggott reconstructs a sequence of events that is consistent with the theory that he holds. It is not legitimate, therefore, to turn around and use this reconstructed situation as an argument for his theory. We return to this point below.

A somewhat weaker point is in principle possible, and Piggott tries to make it also. This would be to show that some theory cannot provide an historical account of how a certain situation could have arisen. Note that all that is required here is that the theory provide sufficient machinery to produce a plausible reconstruction of a state of affairs. Piggott is quite correct in maintaining that this is a legitimate test of a theory. He argues that the theory he defends provides such an account of the examples he discusses, but that the theory of Hooper (1976), natural generative phonology, cannot provide such an account.

In linguistics as in any other field of learning, a scholar may concentrate on the particular aspect of study that most appeals to his temperament. One may choose to analyse and classify the structural phenomena which are found in all varieties of human speech; another may seek to determine the relationships which exist between languages known to be or suspected of being related; a third may follow the history of one particular language, tracing its development from the earliest records to the present; a fourth may concern himself with the many differences which exist contemporaneously among the speakers of one language. The different varieties of speech to be found in any language are called dialects, and the person who studies them is called a linguistic geographer