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This dissertation is a comprehensive description of the grammar of Sierra Popoluca (SP, aka Soteapanec), a Mixe-Zoquean language spoken by approximately 28,000 people in Veracruz, Mexico. This grammar begins with an introduction to the language, its language family, a typological overview of the language, a brief history of my fieldwork, and the methodology undertaken in this study. The grammar continues with a description of the phonology of SP, followed by an overview of the word classes, including verbs, nouns, relational nouns/postpositions, adjectives, adverbs, and numbers, and formative types. The bulk of this grammar is devoted to the morphosyntax of Sierra Popoluca, including nouns and nominal morphology, verbs and verbal morphology, and the mechanisms for expressing tense, aspect, mood, and modality. The grammar also describes the complex predicate formation strategies and sentence-level syntax. A compilation of interlinearized texts appears in the appendix. Sierra Popoluca is an agglutinating, polysynthetic, head-marking language with a complex verbal system. It has ergative-absolutive alignment and its grammar is sensitive to animacy and saliency hierarchies, evident in the case marking and "split" plural systems. Its constituent order is verb-initial, although word order is pragmatically determined. Sierra Popoluca has a number of strategies to form complex predicates, which include verb serialization, noun incorporation, and dependent verb constructions. The data available in this grammar contributes a body of data and descriptive analysis to broad theoretical areas of linguistics as well as existing research on the Mixe-Zoquean language family, languages throughout Mesoamerica, and especially the Gulf branch of the Zoquean family. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Educational interests of women aged 60 and over were studied, and a correlation between the respondents' ages, educational levels, marital status, as well as the number and types of educational topics they chose was investigated. The subjects' preferences as to selected program design questions were also identified. One hundred current members of a voluntary organization, the Minneapolis YWCA, completed a self-administered questionnaire. The typical respondent was Caucasian, aged 60 to 69, and had completed some college. They ranked the 13 categories of 148 top educational topics in the following order: financial security, health and physical fitness, art, personal development, life-coping skills, spirituality, the world we live in, medical concerns, household management, consumer competence, music, hobbies, and career-related topics. An analysis of the variance test found a significant difference in the interests among respondents when grouped into three age categories. The difference in the number of activities of interest was not significant for educational level groups. No significant difference existed in the number of items checked among respondents in three marital status groups. The majority preferred (1) classes with people of mixed ages, (2) fall and spring programs, (3) weekday and morning offerings, and (4) classes and lectures. (The questionnaire, some data, and comments are appended.) (YLB)