merely on ‘accessibility in memory due to such factors as frequency of use or experiential familiarity ... information relevant and available to them. At the same time, in cognitive terms , it can be explained through ... post-Griceans proposed that there are salient, unmarked , presumed meanings that occur independently of ...

This dissertation investigates fixed word order phenomena in 'free' word order languages and their consequences for linguistic theory. Ashas long been observed, languages with flexible word order, in certain circumstances, show 'freezing' effects, whereby only a canonical word order is possible. I propose new generalizations to explain the two types of freezing effects, namely markedness reduction in marked grammatical contexts and the emergence of the unmarked, and show that these pervasive patterns of markedness are incompatible with the classical conception of grammar within generative linguistics where principles of universal grammar (UG) are both universal and inviolable. The analysis I develop here, set within the framework of Optimality-theoretic Lexical-Functional Grammar, captures the universal basis of word order freezing and its parallels to markedness reduction and emergence of the unmarked effects observed in other systems for argument expressions and in other components of grammar,while at the same time allowing for crosslinguistic variation. The first part of the dissertation shows how the Optimality-theoretic account, based on the interaction between markedness constraints derived through harmonic alignment of prominence hierarchies and other constraints on word order, naturally captures the pattern of universal markedness and the basic generalization that highly marked argument types occur only in unmarked position in Hindi and Korean: in these two languages,

not recognize the difference between the marked and unmarked gesture by not responding more prevalently to the marked gesture, unlike the results of the Nonverbal communication is the transmission of messages or signals through a nonverbal platform such as eye contact (oculesics), body language (kinesics), social distance (proxemics), touch (haptics), voice (prosody and paralanguage), physical environments/appearance, and use of objects. When communicating, nonverbal channels are utilized as means to convey different messages or signals, whereas o "Non-verbal communication is omnipresent." They are included in every single communication act. To have total communication, all non-verbal channels such as the body, face, voice, appearance, touch, distance, timing, and other environmental forces must be engaged during face-to-face interaction. Written communication can also have non-verbal attributes. E-mails, web chats, and the social media have options to change text font colours, stationery, add emoticons, capitalization, and pictures in order to capture non-verbal cues into a verbal medium. "Non-verbal behaviours are multifunctional." Many different non-verbal channels are engaged at the same time in communication acts and allow the chance for simultaneous messages to be sent and received. "Non-verbal behaviours may form a universal language system." Smiling, crying, pointing, caressing, and glaring are non-verbal behaviours that are used and understood by people regardless of nationality. Such non-verbal signals allow the most basic form of communication when verbal communication is not effective due to language barriers.