A consensus on Bantu-speaking populations being genetically similar has emerged in the last few years, but the demographic scenarios associated with their dispersal are still a matter of debate. The frontier model proposed by archeologists postulates different degrees of interaction among incoming agropastoralist and resident foraging groups in the presence of "static" and "moving" frontiers. B...

Theorists of language acquisition have long debated the means by which children learn the argument structure of verbs (e.g. Bowerman, 1974, 1990; Pinker, 1984, 1989; Tomasello, 1992). Central to this controversy has been the possible role of verb semantics, especially in learning which verbs undergo dative-shift alternation in languages like English. The learning problem is somewhat simplified ...

I NTERRACIAL differences in the prevaleniee of coronary heart disease in various parts of the world have aroused great interest in recent years. Amon-g the manv studies of the multiracial population of the Afriean coiitinent have beeii several indicating a considerable differenee in the iueidence of the elinical manifestations of coronary vascular disease in the 3 racial groups constituting the...

Much of this literature has concentrated on chosing between one of two analyses: either the OM is a pure agreement marker, analogous to subject markers/agreement in Bantu and other languages, or it is a cliticized pronoun that counts as the true object of the verb even though it appears on the verb on the surface. On the latter analysis, the overt NP in (1c) is not the true grammatical object o...

A sample of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from the southeastern African population of Mozambique has been shown to have affinities with populations both to its north and south. From the north came sequences that may have been involved in the Bantu expansion (from western, through eastern, to southern Africa), such as members of haplogroups L3b, L3e1a and a subset of L1a. The dating of the major com...

The expansion of Bantu languages represents one of the most momentous events in the history of Africa. While it is well accepted that Bantu languages spread from their homeland (Cameroon/Nigeria) approximately 5000 years ago (ya), there is no consensus about the timing and geographical routes underlying this expansion. Two main models of Bantu expansion have been suggested: The 'early-split' mo...

Hemoglobinopathies are the most common monogenic disorders worldwide; however, they have never been systematically studied from a genetic perspective in Uruguay. In this study, we determined the frequencies of hemoglobin variants in Afro-Uruguayans. A sample of 52 healthy unrelated Afro-Uruguayans from the northern (N = 28) and southern (N = 24) regions of the country was analyzed. Eight indivi...

Matrilineal descent is rare in human societies that keep large livestock. However, this negative correlation does not provide reliable evidence that livestock and descent rules are functionally related, because human cultures are not statistically independent owing to their historical relationships (Galton's problem). We tested the hypothesis that when matrilineal cultures acquire cattle they b...

There are many reasc~s for wanting to measure the degree of phoae-tic similarity between members of a group of languages or dialects. The present study grew out of a research project which was designed to get data that might have a bearing on some of the practical problems which exist in Uganda. In the Southern part of Uganda, where two thirds of the nine million people live, there are numerous...

I NTERRACIAL differences in the prevaleniee of coronary heart disease in various parts of the world have aroused great interest in recent years. Amon-g the manv studies of the multiracial population of the Afriean coiitinent have beeii several indicating a considerable differenee in the iueidence of the elinical manifestations of coronary vascular disease in the 3 racial groups constituting the...