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An analysis of methods and models in historical linguistics: specifically, the utilization of speech perception methodology with respect to the evolution of the structure which in modern English denotes progressive aspect.

This study set out to compare the use of intonation by mothers and their young children. The question of ways in which a mother might influence the development of her child's intonation is considered. Detailed analysis of maternal intonation enables an explanation to be offered of the diverse conclusions in the literature about how children use intonation in early speech. Two mother-child pairs were studied in free-play, over a combined age range of 15-28 months. Intonation forms were related to the functions of utterances for both mother and child and the mother's responses to her child's intonation forms were studied. An utterance function category system and an intonation form category system were devised to carry out the analyses. The mother's intonation was not found to be a constant and differentiated indicator of utterance function. It varied widely within functions though displaying a certain specificity of form use that was common to both mothers. The intonation of the children was found to closely match the mothers in use of form and it varied in the same manner in relation to utterance function. There was much similarity between the two children. Mothers did not respond to the intonation of the child as if it were being used as a simple differentiator of utterance function. The systematic variability of the intonation was such that analysis of the influence of the mother's use on that of the child was made difficult. Conversely, it was possible to demonstrate that each of the children was at least partly responsible for his or her organisation of intonation, the two children being very alike in this respect. It is suggested that the children's development of intonation can be seen to reflect both an innately organised communicative system and the influence of the intonation environment provided by the mother's speech. The results of this study do not support any one of the diverse conclusions previously reported on the young child's use of intonation, but provide an explanation of most. The explanation is found not in the influence of individual differences in the mother's intonation,but in the way in which the mothers use intonation in speech, revealing a previously unspecified perspective against which to consider the child's intonation. Intonation is seen to be but one element in an integrated expressive code that both mother and child are competent to use.

This thesis is concerned with various aspects of English anaphora and a number of related phenomena. Roughly two thirds is devoted to nominal anaphora. The remainder considers some of the ways in which constituents other than HP's enter into anaphoric relations. The discussion of nominal anaphora begins with a consideration of two quite widely accepted theories of pronouns and shows that they are fundamentally inadequate* Evidence is then presented for a 'mixed theory', which recognises more than one kind of pronoun. The two main kinds of pronoun that must be recognised are bound variables and 'referential pronouns'. The former are much like bound variables in logic. The latter are a kind of definite description. In their anaphoric use, they can be termed 'pronouns of laziness', but their anaphoric use is not fundamentally different from their non-anaphoric use. There is evidence that so-called 'sentential pronouns' are ordinary pronouns of laziness. It appears, however, that what are termed 'intensional pronouns' are a third kind of pronoun. The discussion of non-nominal anaphora emphasizes the importance of definite descriptions in English anaphora. It is argued that so (in its central use), such, then and there derive from expressions involving definite descriptions. In its prosententlal use, so appears to be an idiomatic realization of a sentential pronoun. Certain uses of so, that and which appear to be idiomatic realizations of and, and hence only pseudo-anaphora. Three general conclusions are drawn: firstly that definite descriptions are central to English anaphora secondly that English anaphora generally do not derive from copies of their antecedents, and thirdly that, while NP's enter into amaphoric relations directly, adjectives and adverbs only do so indirectly through inferences. These conclusions may well apply universally.

Due to the advanced state which Gaelic-English language shift has reached in Scotland, Gaelic learners are now increasingly recognised as having a central role in reversing this process. The present detailed study of adult learners of Scottish Gaelic was undertaken in order to provide an overview of the contemporary world of the Gaelic learner with particular reference to reversing language shift [RLS]. The infrastructure for Gaelic learning is investigated in detail. It is shown that the present facilities for learning the language and for attracting learners tend to be limited, ad-hoc, fragmented and uncoordinated with several significant gaps in provision and with no overall framework or strategic direction. The weaknesses of the Gaelic learning infrastructure have been reflected in the fact that very few Gaelic learners reach fluency. The social identity of the Gaelic learner is investigated next, looking at the position of the learner within the Gaelic speech community and linking this to the question of RLS. It is argued that the learner occupies a somewhat ambiguous social standing within this community, creating both advantages and disadvantages for the individual learner, but offering many advantages from the point of view of RLS. A large scale questionnaire survey of Gaelic learners was undertaken as part of the study, investigating the social background and motivation of learners, their attitudes towards their language and their impact on regenerating the language. In addition to supporting the arguments made both with regard to the Gaelic learning infrastructure and social identity of learners, it can be shown that learners bring many positive benefits to RLS efforts, including enthusiasm, knowledge of Gaelic issues, pro-Gaelic views, strong motivations for learning, and the provision of a market for Gaelic related goods and services. However, the potential for learners at act as significant force in RLS is not currently being fulfilled due to high average age of learners and the failure of a large majority to reach fluency.

Chapters 1 and 2 of this study trace the development of English-language lexicography through two distinct traditions: the glossary-to-dictionary line and the lose well-documented vocabulary-to-thesaurus line. It shows that compilers have never explicitly formulated a theory of 'the word'. Instead, they developed many practical techniques for listing, retrieving, defining and illustrating language items which (they assumed) every educated person automatically knew were words. English-language lexicography began as an exercise in translation between Latin and English, but, as Latin material was absorbed into English lexis (from the Renaissance onwards), lexicography became an apparently unilingual activity. The evidence indicates, however, that despite appearances the original bilingualism remains with us, translation being now intra- instead of inter-linguistic. Chapter 3 reviews the counters of words from the early 19th century on, surveying the objective counters (such as Thorndike), and those who sorted words subjectively (such as Palmer), along with a parallel logico-semantic approach (Ogden's Basic English). Here again there was a lack of explicit theory, and the counts were lose than successful because of a failure to be clear on what to count and where to go for the basic data. The word-counters were also inevitably drawn by the logic of their work into the business of compiling dictionaries. In Chapter 4 linguistics is seen as having made few explicit attempts to define words, nevertheless frequently appealing to our inherent assumptions about what words are, so that such units as 'morphemes' could be postulated and put to work. Chapter 5 synthesizes elements in the earlier chapters. A typology is offered for the English word, and a distinction established between words and lexical basin for word-formation. A number of devices are proposed as useful in any theory of words, including structure formulas, a root-and-base distinction, holism, derivational paradigms and compounding patterns. The theoretical position adopted derives from the work of many linguists, but, in particular, from Vendryes, Sapir, Rose, Entuhiatle and Marchand. A review in also made of the problems relating to semantic analysis, as undertaken by the American cognitive anthropologists and by Lyons. It is proposed that English lexis, historically and functionally, is polysystemic, a composite of two (Vernacular and Neo-Latin) 'streams'. These interact in the living language to provide parallel morphologies and reservoir areas for word-coining. Chapter 6 is an attempt to demonstrate how the principles of Chapter 5 can be applied to a specific area: suffixal word-formation in English. It adopts the polysystemic approach, is both diachronic and synchronic, and uses derivational paradigms, paraphrases and glosses to create a new model of productive. suffixation. It is argued that the lexis and morphology of English cannot be adequately understood without recourse to polysystemic models.

Rhetoricians have traditionally claimed that the communicative effectiveness of a text can be increased if the writer adheres to certain relevant principles of organization. Up to now, however, there appears to have been little objective validation of this view. The aim of this study is to establish whether it is possible, by systematically varying selected features of overall textual organization, to affect the readability of a teaching text, i.e. a text primarily designed to impart factual information to students. In the context of this study, one text is considered to be more 'readable' than another if it results in the reader's gaining more content information from it without any corresponding increase in reading time. The approach taken is an experimental one. Normally, two texts are prepared, as similar as possible to each other in content, length, and syntactic complexity, and differing in respect of some previously defined organizational feature. When two such texts have been prepared, their comparative readability is tested in experimental conditions. The tests used are primarily designed to measure speed of reading, and recall of content. The organization features investigated here are restricted to inter-sentence or inter-clause relationships; no attempt is made to use larger 'units' such as paragraphs.

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The aim of this thesis is threefold; to examine critically previous attempts (taxonomic and generative syntactic and semantic, etc.) to analyze 'modality' phenomena, to propose an integrated theoretical framework for analysing such phenomena, and to examine in detail the syntax and semantics of modality in simple and complex sentence types in English and, to a lesser extent, in German. The term 'modality' is taken first as a cover-term to include the traditional terms: 'rood' and 'modal', since it can be seen from an examination of yubd lisbed grammars of a cross-section of the world's languages that these terms involve considerable semantic and pragmatic overlap, and in some cases their tokens may even stand in a commutation relationship. It is suggested that 'modality' should be ascribed to various combinations of elements in an abstract illocutionary (Ill) system and an abstract modality (Mod) system, a distinction is drawn between 'modality' ascribable to Ill and Mod, and that which can be said to be 'objectivized' is part of the proposition (Pro y)~, over which Ill and Mod operate. The tripartite analysis of the utterance that this yields bears some similarity to that of Lyons (~ manticq Cambridge: CUP 1977) but it is argued that a greater number of terms is required in each system and that certain significant divergences need to be made in order to account for the data presented. The illocutionary system, relating to the 'world' of the speaker and hearer and, the moment of speaking (wo,to) contains operators for stating, questioning and 'world changing' plus the principle of 'over riding' to account for the non-equivalence of illocutionary potential and illocutionary force. The modality system, relating to the speaker's conceptual world and time (wi,ti), i.e, his view of object world and time (w' ,t), may be seen as containing a number of sub-systems: reality, potentiality, factuality, social necessity, etc. Reality relates to the tense system (ti,), and arguments, are presented for a 4-term, rather than a 3-term, system (op. Lyons 1977). Under factuality it seems to be necessary to distinguish: assertive, non-assertive and mandative, all of which may be either negative or positive. With the potentiality system a distinction is made between certainty and necessity while pro _t, is treated as a modification of possibility distinct in its negation properties. Examination of 'modality' in taxis leads to a number of syntactic discoveries, and should act as 'subjunctive substitutes', and to the establishment of two logical connectors: 'sequencer' and 'results in' (in addition to the more familiar conjunction and disjunction), which in some cases may fall within the scope of Mod. The data is presented in the form of paradigms of mood and or modals taking account of a number of different interpretation possibilities, of modal verbs: epistemic (subjective and objective) deontic (performative, subjective and objective); dispositional (external and internal); and 'subjunctive substitute'. On this basis it becomes apparent that the degree-of-distinctiveness in any one paradigm, given a parallel interpretation, is small, despite the fact that the inventory of 'modal' verbs in English is quite large compared with many other languages.

This thesis comprises four chapters dealing with aspects of current British Slang. In Chapter 1 a questionnaire dealing largely with Slang terms for women is described, and the results obtained are analysed for socio-linguistic information. This analysis indicates that differences of Slang usage correlate with the informants' age, sex and social class. A new taxonomy of English Register is suggested. Chapter 2 deals with a test designed to gather data about the acceptability of items in the questionnaire. It investigates the effects on acceptability of: an item's context; the informants' age, sex and social class; and the rating of pairs of items used in similar contexts. In Chapter 3 the problems of carrying out semantic analyses of such material are discussed. A partitioning cluster analysis procedure is employed to group the data objectively. A single-context synonymity test is also applied to the data. Stable clusters which are consistent with the results of the single-context synonymity test and with linguistic intuitions are generated using cluster analysis. Cluster analysis procedures are assessed for applicability in linguistic research and their possible future uses in semantic analysis are discussed. Chapter 4 reviews some alternative proposals for semantic analysis as well as previous suggestions regarding the position of Slang in the English Language. The data collected illustrate semantic parallels between Slang and Standard English. An attempt at componential analysis of the data illustrates problems inherent in this procedure. The difficulties are seen in terms of the dilemma: the need to generalise to keep the system a manageable size; and the unavoidable loss of vital information through generalization. Some modifications of the normal techniques are suggested, especially the introduction of the notion 'fuzzy component', to deal with the irreducible vagueness of meaning in some items of Standard English and of Slang.