Discusses two types of compounding formation in Russian and English used in the technical literature of both languages: (1) thematic, where two words are joined with a vowel between them; and (2) athematic, where no vowel is used. An English example of thematic compounding is "electrochemistry"; an athematic example is…

Argues in favor of a syntactic analysis of secondary predication and against the semantic approach to predication. Most of the evidence to be adduced comes from Spanish. It is posited that secondary predicates are base-generated inside VP in Spanish, confirming Culicover and Wilken's (1984) and Robert's (1988) analysis for English. (40 references)…

This article focuses on the meaning of nonfinite clauses ("root infinitives") in Dutch and English child language. I present experimental and naturalistic data confirming the claim that Dutch root infinitives are more often modal than English root infinitives. This cross-linguistic difference is significantly smaller than previously assumed,…

Analysis of the cofunctional relationship between common nouns and adjectives in English is examined in terms of the principle of semantic copredication. It is proposed that a formalized semantic metalanguage system can be constructed to demonstrate that some English adjectives behave like common nouns. Numerous examples are provided throughout…

A brief overview is presented of previous theoretical treatments of the verb-preposition construction, concentrating on three Government Binding Theory treatments. Arguments are outlined that support a different analysis of this type of construction. (24 references) (Author/VWL)

Argues that the imperative construction in English can be given a fairly orthodox syntactic representation assuming current principles in Government Binding Theory. A number of reasons are provided for claiming that the imperative construction contains a case-marked subject. (23 references) (Author/VWL)

This paper presents a class of sentences that certain syntactic rules of English would be expected to produce, but that are not grammatical. The sentences all involve the raising of a sentential Noun Phrase (NP) and the subsequent application of some syntactic rule to that senential NP. A constraint, referred to as the Antigone Constraint, is…

Presents a critical review of linguistic research on the temporal structure of sentences, with particular reference to the progressive aspect of the English verb. All works reviewed analyze the temporal meaning of these forms using the concepts of "Interval Semantics" and the methods of logical analysis. (MES)

Outlines a system that modifies, and expands on, PTQ ("The Proper Treatment of Quantification in English" by R. Montague), in order to include an analysis of the present and past tenses, and of the perfect and progressive aspects. Also analyzes temporal adverbs and their interactions with tense and aspect. (MES)

Presents an integrated theory of the syntactic and semantic representation of complements where the unexpressed subjects of the embedded verb-phrase complement are subject to certain interpretation restrictions. It is argued that the grammar of English controlled complements can be derived from the interaction of semantically based principles of…

Argues that English intonational structure and surface syntactic structure are one and can be captured in a single unified grammar. The interpretations that the grammar provides for such constituents corresponds to the entities and open propositions of intonational meaning that have been described as "theme" and "rheme,""given" and "new," and…

Previous psycholinguistic research has shown that a variety of contextual factors can influence the interpretation of syntactically ambiguous structures, but psycholinguistic experimentation inherently does not allow for the investigation of the role that these factors play in natural (uncontrolled) language use. We use regression modeling in…

A discussion of verb intransitivization in English grammar looks at different verb classes that allow or do not allow this phenomenon. The semantic primitive of involvement is a phenomenon that attempts to find related features in sentences where intransitivization occurs. Semantic involvement patterns are assigned in the subject or direct object…

The aim of this paper is to determine whether the first predicate noun (NP) after the verb in sentences such as "Kelly gave Rose a piano" is the direct object or the indirect object in the surface structure of English. An analysis reveals that the direct object in English is not marked by its position immediately after a (transitive)…

Discusses future-tense form possibilities in English and their pedagogical implications. Six possibilities are discussed: (1) the future tense proper, signalled by "if" + present or mental state verbs; (2) declaration of intent, with "I'll" or "we'll"; (3) "Shall I/we" questions; (4) "will you"…