In Recent Years there has developed an increasing interest in the contrastive study of languages and in the theoretical principles underlying such study. As different pairs of languages are contrasted the problems inherent in contrastive analysis are more clearly revealed, and each new problem forces a re-examination of contrastive principles. Recent developments in grammatical theory, particularly the development of transformational-generative theory, have also compelled the attention of the contrastive analyst.

Infinitive phrases have a wide range of function within the matrix sentence. They can act as expansions of the verb, and as such they can be either marked or unmarked, either transitive or intransitive; they can replace nouns, and can therefore function as subjects, subjective complements, direct objects, objective complements (either marked or unmarked by to), as objects of prepositions, or appositives; they can function as modifiers of sentences, nouns, verbs, adjectives, and in a sense adverbs. But the outer structure of an infinitive phrase (i.e., its structure within the matrix sentence) is no more important than the inner structure, even though most of the traditional work done on infinitives has been done in reference to the outer structure. This article is therefore concerned with the outer structure only insofar as it relates to the inner structure. As it is concerned to a large extent with functional, rather than formal, relationships, the presentation is informal, since there is some disagreement among transformational linguists as to how functional relationships should be displayed.

Le présent article expose l’utilisation d’un nouveau concept tel qu’il a été présenté à des étudiants francophones dans un cours de lexicologie et de sémantique du français moderne. La nouveauté de ce concept est relative, car il est très proche des sèmes ou sémantèmes familiers aux linguistes. Cependant, si la composante sémantique, telle qu’elle sera définie ci-dessous, ressemble beaucoup aux sèmes dont parle Pierre Guiraud dans ses Structures étymologiques du lexique français (Larousse, 1967) lorsqu’il dit que singe contient en puissance les sèmes de « laideur », « grimace », « espièglerie » (p. 200), par contre elle ne correspond pas vraiment au sémantème ou sème défini par Marouzeau dans son Lexique de la terminologie linguistique, et d’ailleurs Guiraud ne fait pas des sèmes l’utilisation qui est proposée ici.

Dans les parlers franco-canadiens du nord de l’Ontario, comme en français populaire ou dans certains français régionaux, on trouve une forme verbale progressive périphrastique qui se construit à l’aide de la particule après [apre] + infinitif. Elle correspond au français commun en train de ou à la forme progressive anglaise. Ainsi pourrait-on traduire “il est après chanter” par he is singing et elle est après faire la vaisselle par she is doing the dishes.

The description of Old English adverbs found in OE handbooks and grammars is the traditional Greco-Roman one based on function, namely a listing of words that function as modifiers of verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. The result is a morphological classification based on syntactic function.

In contrast, the classification of other OE parts of speech (verbs adjectives, pronouns, nouns) is based on paradigmatic sets marked by characteristic inflectional suffixes. One finds, therefore, inconsistency of classification and description. Whereas verbs, adjectives, pronouns, and nouns are identified as sets marked by morphemes of case, number, tense, etc., adverbs are identified as a set marked by function. However, it is possible to reclassify OE adverbs on a morphemic basis. This paper attempts to provide such an analysis, as well as a morphemic identification of characteristic subsets of OE adverbs.

Nous nous Proposons d’étudier au cours de cet article deux des multiples problèmes posés par la racine indo-européenne *d(e/o)y. Nous envisagerons d’expliquer tout d’abord les formes anormales des accusatifs dyām, Zῆv et diem. Cet effort nous permettra peut-être d’éclairer l’évolution phonétique des diphtongues indo-européennes à premier élément long. La deuxième partie de cet article sera consacrée à dīvī, l’ancien génitif du mot deus. L’étude de cette forme est, en effet, susceptible selon nous de jeter une lumière intéressante sur la marque du génitif singulier des thématiques latins. Nous avons considéré dans l’un et l’autre cas que la racine *d(e/o)y était féconde pour donner des mots dans la langue liturgique qui résiste, comme on le sait, particulièrement bien aux tendances de normalisation d’une langue donnée. Aussi est-on en droit de considérer la plupart des dérivés de cette racine comme un champ d’expérience privilégié pour le linguiste et pour le philologue.

Modern colloquial Japanese exhibits within its grammatical system several types of imperative constructions which, on the surface, seem quite diverse. Examples of some imperatives are

All of these imperatives may be glossed as “close the window,” with various differences in style noted in parentheses. In each of the constructions above, both ‘window’ and o, the direct object marker, remain unchanged, while the shape of the verb ‘close’ as well as the presence of other morphemes such as ‘give’, ‘do’, and i, ro, imperative shapes, change considerably. The negative imperatives are equally diverse. Each of the following examples may be glossed as “do not close the window”:

The increased interest in speech brought about by the development of modern Linguistics has resulted in a corresponding diminution of regard for written texts as a manifestation of language. In fact a majority of linguists, at least in North America, appear to regard only speech as “real language,” and writing as an incompetent attempt to record it, giving “an imperfect and incomplete picture of actual speech.” The purpose of this paper is to show that this attitude reflects a distorted view of the relation of speech and writing, and has had a pernicious effect on the grammatical study of written texts.

In the modern turkic languages there are three words for a non-Muslim, European monarch: kral, kiral, korol. Obviously these words have the same common origin. This paper is an attempt at an explanation of the etymology of the last.

Kral is the term for “king” common to all the South Slavic languages. Although it is not attested in the canon of Old Church Slavonic, it must have been borrowed early enough from the Prankish root karl—that is, Charlemagne—to allow it to undergo the changes common to all roots of the type TorT. The language known as Turkish or Osmanli borrowed this root from the conquered Balkan Slavs to denote a non-Muslim monarch.

The attitude of many humanists toward the computer may be suggested by the reply of the ultimate computer to the ultimate question “Is there a God?” “There is now,” it clicked in reply. To anyone who knows anything at all about computers, this is simply funny; but many humanists take it seriously. They look upon the mighty works and despair. But whatever else it may be, the devilish device is certainly useful for linguistic work. Among its other uses, the computer has been applied with some success to produce concordances of poems, including a concordance of Middle English poems by the “Pearl” poet. It has also been applied to the statistical analysis of Modern English. These two applications of the computer may be combined to solve several problems in the recent approach to Middle English dialectology developed by Angus McIntosh and Michael Samuels.