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This paper discusses the use of pop, rock, and folk music in foreign language teaching. Modern music represents an idiom familiar to a broad span of young people, and has an important place in the life of students ranging in age from ten to thirty-five years of age. It also tends to follow and comment on the important trends of modern society. Songs can be used as presentation contexts, as reinforcement material, and for cultural education. A specific outline of how to use songs in teaching English as a second language is presented. Songs with regional or ethnic varieties of English, and songs with internal sound changes are useful in the teaching of phonological patterns. The grammatical aspect can be looked at with songs having repetition, substitution, or internal pattern rearrangement. Story or narrative songs, performative songs, show and film songs, and songs that focus on ideas or cultural themes, such as flight from the cities, drug experiences, ecology, the generation gap, and ethnic America, are useful in teaching the semantic aspects of the language. (CLK)

This paper is an attempt to summarize as explicitly as possible certain empirical findings of classical biosystematics and modern semantic ethnography which may be considered to represent formal universals of human mental structure. The paper offers a formal treatment of the subject of taxonomy, and an application of the formalism to several problem areas in the fields of semantics, ethnography, and cognition. The structure formalized here, essentially following the notions of Linnaean biology, is a hierarchy of inclusion relations among a collection of named sets of objects. Section one introduces the formal definition of taxonomic structure and sketches the major outlines of this kind of mathematical object. Section two introduces some theoretical problems relating to taxonomy in ethnographic and semantic contexts and show how this forumlation applies to, and clarifies, these problems. In particular, the notion of semantic contrast in the context of taxonomy is examined in some detail. Section three introduces the notion of taxonomy and examines the nature of the mapping which governs the realization of conceptual taxa by lexical items. (Author/AM)

In this paper two questions are raised: (1) Is there any meaning to current research? (2) Is meaning important to the language acquisition process? It is necessary to explore the nature of research in general to evaluate what kind of research we are doing. This leads us to consider next the content of research on human learning and on the acquisition of language in particular. Meaning is felt to be essential to any explanation of the process of language acquisition. (Author)

The paper investigates the problems of assembling, describing and computerizing corpora, defined as collections of "texts assumed to be representative of a given language, dialect or other subject of a language, to be used for linguistic analysis." Specific reference is made to the formation of the Brown Standard Corpus. The formation of a corpus is justified in terms of saving effort and in providing a compilation of data that will serve as a research tool in comparative studies. Important questions in the process concern the body of language from which the sample will be drawn, the size of the sample, and its structure. These, in turn, are dependent on the purpose for which the corpus is assembled: graphic analysis will require a different corpus than will phonological or grammatical analysis, for example, the latter presenting the most problems. Practical constraints on the size of the corpus, including time, energy and money are mentioned. The organization of the corpus is discussed, underlining such factors as the size of the base units, mode of selection and collection, assembly of the corpus and computerization. The question of how much additional explanatory material should accompany the corpus is raised, with particular reference to lexical and semantic analyses. (CLK)

In a sentence containing a conjunction "when,""once," or "as soon as," the events in the main and the subordinate clauses are understood as occurring closely together in time. This paper endeavors to uncover the subtle differences which nevertheless exist among them. Clauses headed by "when" can refer to a span of time, whereas "once" and "as soon as"-clauses must refer to a point in time. There is a clear correlation between the distribution of "once" and "as soon as" with respect to the verb in their clause, and the classification of verbs proposed by Vendler (1967). Further, the presuppositional nature of "when" is different from that of "once" and "as soon as." In sentences containing a clause headed by the latter two conjunctions, the events in both the main and the subordinate clauses are presupposed as starting at the point designated by the subordinate clause. The difference between "once" and "as soon as" is evidenced by the impossibility for "once" to connect two events which are causally unrelated. Sentences illustrating this point seem to lead to the conclusion that a "once"-clause gives the last in a series of events causally leading up to the event in the main clause. (Author/CLK)

The paper constitutes an attempt to provide a nonenumerative characterization of agreeing terms and agreement features. The following pertinent statements turn out to be (near) exceptionless: only coreferential terms agree, and for any given language all agreement features are pronominal ones. Four agreement features, gender, number, definiteness, person, are discussed in more detail. For gender and number, a distinction between noun-phrase-internal and noun-phrase-external agreement is made, and the generalization is suggested that if agreement takes place in terms of "semantic" rather than "grammatical" gender or number within the noun phrase, then noun-phrase-external agreement is also "semantic." Some informal suggestions are made about how various language (-type)-specific agreement phenomena can be accounted for in terms of assumptions about universal underlying structure. (Author)

This paper examines the perceptual processes that underlie normal language acquisition with relation to perceptual dysfunctions in the aphasic child. Experiments are cited which seem to indicate that auditory dyfunctions may underlie language impairment. Experimental studies of the linguistic systems of the aphasic child seem to support the theory that the deficiency is quantitative (or one of delay in learning) rather than qualitative (or one of manner of learning), and that this deficiency is one of a semantic, rather than syntactic or morphological, nature. (AM)

This paper draws from data on 123 languages to examine the semantics of comparative systems in an attempt to define as closely as possible the relationships that exist among three basic types of constructions and among their constituents. It is determined that superlatives mark absolute disparity, that comparatives mark relative disparity, and that superlatives and comparatives are more closely related to each other than to equatives. Analysis of degree marker types reinforces the close relationship between comparatives and superlatives as opposed to equatives. Suppletive paradigms furnish yet another link in the chain of evidence relating comparative and superlative on the one hand and positive and equative on the other. The markedness hierarchy theory, i.e., that the superlative is more marked than the comparative and the latter more than the positive, is further supported by the fact that superlative degree markers may be derived from comparative degree markers but not the converse. Appendixes include: tables of standard and degree markers, of hypotactic marker types, and of formal identity or near-identity of markers. (Author/AM)

The purpose of this paper is to present systematically some facts regarding interdialectal constant and varying features of the semantics of English kinship terminology. The data present some problems for current views of grammar and of linguistic variation. Regarding the former, it is not clear what sort of "rule," what place in grammar, the representation of the factual generalizations is to be accorded. Regarding the implications of the facts of constancy and variation in English kinship semantics for the overall conception of the nature of linguistic variation, it is generally concluded that the variation observed in English kinship semantics seems to reflect more directly the structural possibilities inherent in the language than social or sociolinguistic factors. The further conclusion may be drawn that the closer to sound the greater the extent of social determination of linguistic variation. (Author/AM)

This paper attempts to develop some relatively well-defined notions that may be of use in descriptive semantics and in some areas of cognitive psychology. These notions are intended as explications of certain terms widely used in these fields such as semantic dimension, semantic feature, semantic space, category, conjunctive category, and sememe. The mode of explication is to develop definitions for these terms in an argument similar to a formal axiomatic system, with emphasis on the applicability of terms to empirical data. (CLK)

Criticism has been directed at a growing body of literature broadly referred to as ethnoscience, ethnosemantics, folk science, ethnographic semantics, and cognitive anthropology. Criticisms concern methodological and analytic aspects of ethnoscientific procedure, and the directions of ethnosemantic research from a theoretical point of view. The present paper seeks to answer these criticisms and to evaluate the theoretical strengths of ethnosemantics. The focus of ethnosemantic work shifted in the early and mid-sixties, partially as a reflection of renewed interest in theoretical linguistics in language universals, and largely due to the growing number of ethnographies being completed. A number of parallels were discovered in formal classificatory structures, the most striking ones being in the area of lexicon. Detailed descriptions of particular lexical domains led to general semantic structures ignored by the methods of traditional cultural anthropology. One example of empirical research suggestive of the universalist-evolutionary orientation in ethnographic semantics is described, namely Berlin and Kay's work on color classification. (CLK)

Studies have indicated that agrammatical aphasics tend to better realize morphemes with a high level of semantic value. A study sought to examine the effect of the variation of the information content of the article on its comprehension by the aphasic. The appropriate and the significant nature of the function words "the" and "a" were varied with relation to the extralinguistic context to see whether these distinctions would be noted by the aphasic. Eighteen aphasics were studied: 4 Broca, 5 Wernicke, 5 mixed anterior, and 5 anomic. Three members of the laboratory staff served as a control. Drawings containing 3 figures, 2 sharing a color and 2 sharing a shape, were shown. A tape gave instructions, with 8 possibilities, to: "Press the/a/white/black/round/square one." The following conditions resulted: (1) inappropriate article plus definite adjective, (2) appropriate article plus non-definite adjective, (3) inappropriate article plus definite adjective, and (4) inappropriate article plus non-definite adjective. It is concluded that articles are not normally informative in English, and therefore do not lend themselves to this type of analysis. Because English does not provide the means to vary systematically the informative content of the article, it was not possible to elicit correlated variation in responses. (AM)

Some aspects of a theory of grammar are presented which derive from a formal theory of language acquisition. One aspect of the theory is a universal constraint on analyzability known as the Freezing Principle, which supplants a variety of constraints proposed in the literature. A second aspect of the theory is the Invariance Principle, a constraint on the relationship between semantic and syntactic structure that makes verifiable predictions of syntactic universals. The relationship between the notion of "explanatory adequacy" of a theory of grammar and the learnability of a class of transformational grammars is discussed. (Author)

This is a study of the kinds of processes involved in learning the meaning of individual lexical items, and in particular how the acquisition of lexical meaning is related to the cognitive structuring of events on the one hand and the ability to produce syntactic paraphrases of a word's meaning and other related constructions on the other. It is proposed that errors involving the use of noncausative verbs in a causative sense come about through inference of a derivational or inclusive relationship between causative verbs and their noncausative counterparts and through a generalization by analogy with these causative verbs. It is further argued that when a child first begins to use causative verbs, they are essentially unanalyzed forms, i.e., the child uses a linguistic form without being aware of its internal structure. The evidence that unanalyzed forms have been analyzed is the creation of novel forms which are made up of same or similar components combined according to the same rules. Thus, a fundamental distinction is made between cognitive knowledge and knowledge of a linguistic structure. (AM)

This analysis seeks to link discourse structure and semantic or lexical systems. The example is given of a Cuna curing chant named "the way of the pepper," in which 53 names for pepper ("kapur") are used in a projection of a paradigmatic axis (the lexical taxonomy) onto a syntagmatic axis. A corollary of the principle of viewing discourse from this perspective is that uses of speech or discourse structures actually serve to define or elaborate certain linguistic sub-systems. This is termed "ecology of language." This and other examples suggest other areas for future research, namely the full range of principles by which paradigmatic systems are projected onto syntagmatic discourse structures, the relation of this principle to other basic principles, and the kinds of linguistic variation (phonological, or lexical, for example) manipulated in the process of discourse organization. (Author/AM)

Speech samples were taken every two weeks for a period of 40 weeks from a five-year-old Japanese girl learning English as a second language through her environment. The presence or absence of some grammatical morphemes in linguistic or nonlinguistic obligatory context was scored; using Brown's (1973) criterion for morpheme acquisition, a rank order of these morphemes was determined. The order obtained was different from those of native English-speaking children. Possible determinants for this rank order are hypothesized in terms of (1) presence/nonpresence of that semantic notion expressed by those individual English morphemes in Japanese, (2) a principle of simplicity, and (3) phonological interference. (Author)

This volume is based on field work conducted in 1960 in Papeete and in a rural district of Tahiti, under the guidance of Douglas Oliver. Section two, which is based on a Ph.D. thesis (Kay 1963), develops the hypothesis that Tahitian words for social classification and the common French translations are semantically equivalent for most native speakers of Tahitian. This means that when a French word is used, the Tahitian meaning is intended. Section three, which attempts to relate the data in section two to more recent anthropological research, develops the hypothesis that words designating racial/social types in Brazilian Portuguese do not constitute a shared semantic system which permits native speakers to communicate effectively in this domain. This semantic ambiguity may be due to a desire to slur class and race distinctions. Section four discusses the implications of these hypotheses for semantic theory, and presents research on other sets of words whose meanings seem to imply underlying notions of quantity and statistical distribution. (Author/AM)

Comprehension of the quantifiers "some" and "all" was studied with 202 children, three to nine years old. Thirty-two quantifier sentences dealing with descriptions of circles and squares were presented to the children. Wooden objects were presented to some children to see if results were affected by the choice of abstract objects, but no differences were found. The relationship of "over-interpreting" quantifiers to acquisition was analyzed. "Over-interpretation" is to understand "all" as occupying both possible sentence positions: as a sentence quantifier and as a quantifier in an adjective phrase. Interpretations of "all" as an adverb and as an adjective are analyzed, and deep structure positions and over-interpretation are discussed. "Double-some" sentences, the extensive"some," the intensive "some," reversals, and quantifier order are also discussed. (SW)

An analytic sketch of motion/location in more primitive spatio-temporal terms is presented. The earlier account (ED 096 825), showing various languages' most characteristic pattern for deriving a putatively-universal underlying representation of motion and location, is continued. The English pattern is characterized further (amplified by data from the analogous Russian and Yiddish), and the distinct Spanish pattern is presented and contrasted. A typology of languages based on their most characteristic pattern of motion/location derivation concludes the discussion. (Author/PMP)