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The studies in this volume are revised versions of a selection from the papers presented at the Fourth International Conference on Historical Linguistics held at Stanford University on 26–30 March 1979. Papers at this conference and in this volume treat aspects of all current topics in historical linguistics including topics that are only recently considered relevant such as acquisition structure and language use.

Selon une dynamique évidente mais apparemment irrésistible les textes médiévaux mal connus tendent à le rester et leur obscurité à se justifier d'elle-même. La raison immédiate en est cette fois une répétition régulière d'une très vieille hypothèse jamais vérifiée sur la nature de la Chanson d'Antioche. La présente étude vise en premier lieu à briser au profit d'une littérature parfois incroyablement méconnue le cercle vicieux des écrits de seconde main; elle peut aussi à l'occasion servir l'étude du processus d'obscurcissement lui-même. Nous nous efforçons donc de répondre ici à une double question historique et critique. Comment se fait-il qu'on entend parler si peu—et si méchamment—d'un cycle épique majeur et unifié celui de la Croisade? Quelle est l'origine du topos critique qui assigne à ce Cycle un rang inférieur aux autres quelquefois en le rejetant totalement hors du genre épique? Car nous avons affaire à un topos dont il s'agit de bien mesurer l'étendue.

There is no country in the world where as many different languages are spoken as in New Guinea approximately a fifth of the languages in the world. Most of these so-called Papuan languages seem to be unrelated to languages spoken elsewhere. The present work is the first truly comprehensive study of such a language Hua. The chief typological peculiarity of Hua is the existence of a ‘medial verb’construction used to conjoin clauses in compound and complex sentences. Hua also shows a fundamental morphological distinction between coordinate and subordinate medial clauses the latter are not ‘tense-iconic’ the events they describe are not necessarily prior to the event described in later clauses. Moreover their truth is always presupposed. The distribution and behaviour of a post-nominal suffix - mo provides insights into the nature of topics conditional clauses and functional definitions of the parts of speech. In phonology the central rules of assimilation are constrained by the universal hierarchy of sonority which may however be derived from binary features. These are some of the areas in which the grammar of Hua is unusually perspicuous. The present work aims at a standard of completeness such that it would be a useful reference work for research in almost any theoretical topic.

This study of Góngora’s Soledades is intended to summarize and discuss some of the problems which seemed important for a better understanding of these poems. Special attention is paid to the two opposing ‘camps’ that developed over time; one mainly focussing on the form and the other on the content of Soledades. In this volume the authors tries to integrate the methods and results of both of the ‘camps’.

This volume presents a set of papers on linguistic thought in the Middle Ages. It is complemented by a comprehensive bibliography and indices. The papers in this volume appeared earlier in Historiographia Linguistica 7:1/2 (1980).

This volume consists of autobiographical by the following scholars together with pictures and autographs: Raven I. McDavid Jr. Henry M. Hoenigswald John B. Carroll William G. Moulton Archibald A. Hill Yakov Malkiel Charles F. Hockett Harold B. Allen William Bright Einar Haugen George S. Lane Frederic G. Cassidy James B. McMillan Winfred P. Lehmann Fred W. Householder and Dell Hymes. A master list of references and an index of persons conclude the volume.

This volume presents a selection of revised papers from the International Conference on the History of the Language Sciences (Ottawa 1978). These have been organized under the following headings: I. Classical Traditions in the Middle Ages and Medieval Thought in the Renaissance and After; II. Sixteenth Through Eighteenth Century Linguistic Ideas; III. Eighteenth-Century Thought in England France and Germany; IV. Late-Eighteenth to Mid-Twentieth Century Linguistics; V. Linguistic Pursuits Outside Europe and Points of Contact Between East and West; and VI. Supplementa: Beyond the History of Linguistics.

This volume brings together a number of papers written by R. W. Hunt (1908-1979) on the history of grammar in the Middle Ages. The importance of these papers lies almost as much in the spark of scholarly investigation that they have inspired as in their contribution to original research. The first three studies in this collection deal with the change in grammatical doctrine that took place in the late 11th and 12th centuries and from which all subsequent developments during the creative period of medieval grammatical speculation derive. The fourth paper deals with a problem that concerns all students of the medieval liberal arts: the unity of learning as opposed to the present-day compartmentalisation of studies. The remaining three studies deal with the textual materials available to the medieval student of grammar.

This essay concerns the analysis of speech act verbs. It offers a range of ideas which form theoretical preliminaries to the analysis of this phenomenon.

The purpose of this essay is to both discuss commands as a species of speech act and to discuss commands within the broader framework of how they are used and reacted to.