Reviews different structures and techniques of knowledge representation: structure of database records and files, data structures in computer programming, syntatic and semantic structure of natural language, knowledge representation in artificial intelligence, and models of human memory. A prototype expert system that makes use of some of these…

Outlines an approach to develop a computer program that can parse beginner-level English in BASIC through input processing, word matching, and phrase structure parsing. (CB)

Describes a parsing program called "Analyzing Language" (AL). The Augmented Transition Network was modified to incorporate case grammar analysis. Turbo PASCAL is the program's language. (Author/LMO)

This paper explores the syntactic and semantic character of previously undescribed sentence complements (SCs) in Emai, a Benue-Congo language of Nigeria's Edoid group. Data come from ongoing documentation incorporating oral narrative texts as well as dictionary and grammar descriptions. To delineate the grammatical properties of SCs, the paper…

The language of sportscasting is analyzed in terms of register variation, first by locating the register by successive approximations to a characterization of occasions of use, then by identifying syntactic characteristics: simplification, inversions, heavy modifiers, result expressions, and routines. Sports announcer talk is described as a…

Presents a comparative semantic analysis of English, French, and Dutch transitive constructions that takes into account the entity that sets the event in motion, the object it affects, and the process that links both. (18 references) (Author/CK)

Investigates the differences in form and meaning between the Dutch and English passives, attributing the differences to the passive auxiliaries that signal a process and a state for Dutch and English. The article is aided by the framework of Langacker's (1991) cognitive grammar. (30 references) (Author/CK)

States the differences between the classes of structures that admit a progressive interpretation in English and Japanese and discusses progressive aspect in these two languages on the basis of proposed universally valid definitions. It is concluded that the contrastive behavior of the English "be-ing" construction and the Japanese…

Discusses and compares the meaning of epistemic uses of modals. Demonstrates that the relation between them is not as simple as has been frequently suggested. The article bases its observations on the data from a corpus of parallel French and English texts, pointing out that such a corpus can open new avenues for investigation of an old topic. (18…

Describes two grammaticality judgment tasks--one in French and one in English--developed based on differences between the two languages vis-a-vis middle constructions. The tasks were administered to Anglopone and Francophone advanced and very advanced learners of their second language, and to unilingual groups with the same first languages.…

Attempts to use a construct of literary theory to solve a linguistic problem: the notion of narrative perspective to explain tense variation in Bulgarian narrative. The specific phenomenon of variation is between the past indefinite and the indirect tenses in passages where all the verb forms should be indirect. (24 references) (Author/CK)

Mastering sentence-construction skills is essential to learning to write. Limited sentence-construction skills may hinder a writer's ability to translate ideas into text. It may also inhibit or interfere with other composing processes, as developing writers must devote considerable cognitive effort to sentence construction. The authors examined…

Describes rules for the use and interpretation of "verbally determinate ellipsis" involving the English verb group. Discussion covers: verbal determinacy and indeterminacy; verb group vs. verb phrase; the verb group as a five-part system; verb group echoing vs. auxiliary contrasting ellipsis; passive auxiliary; interpretation rules;…

Describes relationship between curriculum and learner evaluation in Jordan of English language teaching. Claims Oxford Secondary English Course for Jordan tests are defective, speaking is ignored in tests, reading comprehension is neglected and tests are exclusively discrete-point tests. Suggests use of cloze tests and translation. (BK)

Presents a corpus-based analysis of two lexical items: Modern English "hand" and "fist" and their Middle Cornish equivalents, resulting in discovering semantic and collocational differences between the corresponding lexemes in these two languages. The article argues that grammatical meaning may form part of the lexical meaning…