This paper argues that sentences in the have a V frame are not a jungle of idiosyncrasies, but exhibit orderly and systematic behavior, governed by strict semantic rules. These rules can be stated in precise formulae with full predictive power. Ten subtypes are singled out: each has a slightly different semantic formula, but all have a common core, which is a semantic invariant of the have a V frame. These semantic formulae, which account for differences both in acceptability (have a drink and *have an eat) and in meaning (drink and have a drink), are stated not in terms of ad-hoc features or labels, but in an independently justified semantic metalanguage based on natural language.

English questions lacking an auxiliary (e.g. You happy now?) fail to occur in certain tenses. The first part of this paper suggests that the phenomenon derives from the interaction of the Recoverability Condition (Chomsky 1965) with markedness conventions for tense structures. The second part shows that reduced yes–no questions differ from reduced WH-questions as regards their sensitivity to person, number, morphological redundancy, and contraction. It is argued that reduced yes–no questions and reduced WH-questions do not constitute a unified phenomenon, and that the asymmetries in the two classes reflect properties of distinct components in the grammar.

The distinction between contactive and non-contactive causation shows up repeatedly in languages (Masica 1976, Chap. 3; Cole 1976), and is claimed by Xolodovič 1969 to be ‘fundamental’ in their description. Arguing against earlier descriptions, this paper provides an alternate analysis of this important contrast.

The work of Jakobson—and later, of Greenberg—has developed the notion of MORPHOLOGICAL MARKEDNESS. In this view, certain morphological categories (e.g. noun singulars) are considered unmarked or more basic in relation to others (e.g. noun plurals). It is shown here that there are some principled exceptions to the general markedness conventions. One example of such LOCAL MARKEDNESS, as this type of markedness reversal will be called, is that nouns whose referents naturally occur in groups or pairs show many of the effects of being unmarked in the plural. The consequences of such local markedness in terms of language acquisition, paradigm regularization, lexical borrowing, and the formation of double morphology are explored in some detail.

Black English has, in addition to the motion verb come, a come which expresses only speaker indignation. To some extent it shares grammatical properties with auxiliary verbs. Typically, it occurs in utterances that can be taken as identical to ones occurring in non-Black dialects; and it is apparently for this reason that it has remained undetected. The existence of this come indicates that an even greater difference exists between Black and White speech than previously thought. It is also of interest that the semi-auxiliary come occurs even in acrolectal varieties of Black English. This reveals that the postcreole continuum in the United States differs from that in Guyana as described by Bickerton 1975, who states that forms which are identical to ones in the base language, but functionally distinct, are not part of the acrolect.