My study (Lindseth, "The Effects of Form-Focused Instruction on the Acquisition of Subject-Verb Inversion in German") that was published in the Volume 49, No. 1 issue of "Foreign Language Annals" suggested that form-focused instruction that targets a specific structure may help learners progress faster toward accurate use of…

Lindseth (2016) reported that direct instruction and practice using the German verb-inversion rule resulted in higher accuracy in an oral test for college students, supporting the hypothesis that explicit linguistic knowledge can become implicit linguistic knowledge. It is quite likely, however, that the conditions for the use of conscious…

This article offers commentary on the Multiple Grammars (MG) language acquisition theory proposed by Luiz Amaral and Tom Roeper in this issue. It argues that more precise definitions are needed for the terms "rule," "simple," and "productive." Topics discussed include Amaral and Roeper's verb second (V2) rule,…

Ute Bohnacker's (2006) article on the acquisition of the verb second (V2) property in German by native speakers of Swedish (also a V2 language) is an attempted rebuttal of Hakansson et al.'s (2002) work on first language (L1) transfer and aspects of the underlying theory on which the work is based: Processability Theory (Pienemann, 1998). The…

Examines the German "werden-" passives and their English counterparts identifying four basic constraints on the inclusion of "being" in the English passive construction. Uses contrastive analysis to explain the ambiguity of the English past participle, and orders the constraints on the use of "being" sequentially…

A categorical difference between the verbal groups of English and German is discussed. The English verbal group is analyzed as consisting of a lexical constituent and modifiers. The latter divide into four groups of (full) auxiliaries (passive, aspect, time relation, and epistemic modals) and into the two main classes of verbal and non-verbal…

Speakers of languages having only one verb "to know" (e.g., Japanese) have difficulty with the two verbs "wissen" and "kennen". Tables are given showing sentence types and degrees of frequency. Various linguistic aspects are considered. Three dictionaries are cited and the inadequacy of their definitions are pointed out. (IFS/WGA)

Argues that the traditional method for learning German verbs by their infinitives is a more practical and communicative approach to German language instruction than a recent pedagogically harmful suggestion that verbs be introduced by their stems. (Author/CB)

Proposes an analysis of German passive based upon internal structure rather than translation conventions from Latin and Greek. Claims that this approach leads to a description of the perfect participle as an adjectival complement, which eliminates the classification of a passive voice for German and simplifies the learning task. (MES)

Argues that a Universal Grammar (UG)-based analysis for the three stages of NEG-placement is not only possible, but in fact provides independent support for UG-based analyses of the developmental sequence found in first-language Romance language and second-language German verb placement. (41 references) (GLR)

Reviews the terminological, methodological, and pedagogical confusion present in the German textbooks of the past 15 years, and proposes an improved terminology for teaching 4 basic grammatical components: strong verbs, mixed verbs, declensions, and the subjunctive. The new terminology is based on the principle of rational simplicity. (21…

We show that Kempen and Harbusch's ("Cognition" (2003) "this issue") arguments against our claims cannot be upheld. On the one hand, their alternative account of our data that is based on the availability of constructions with object-experiencer verbs is not compatible with the literature on the processing of these types of sentences in German.…

Gives a series of quotations from various authors concerning speech-act theory. Stresses the importance of providing a glossary--hitherto lacking--of verbs which describe the speech act. (IFS/WGA)

Found dissociations between regular and irregular inflectional processes in the formation of English past tenses, German noun plurals, and German participles. Children's inflectional errors include using regular patterns for irregular forms. Some linguistic processes, such as forming compound words, are sensitive to the distinction between regular…

Discusses the difficulties in learning the English verbs "do" and "make" by second-language learners, and compares the use of these verbs with the German "tun" and "machen" and the Dutch "doen" and "maken." It is suggested that to reach valid conclusions in contrastive linguistics, it is necessary to consider the diachronic dimension. (21…