The goal of this study is to understand the ways in which humans apply relevant modules of knowledge of language to an input sentence in a parsing process. To this end, quantifier float constructions in Japanese are analyzed, as a case study, on the basis of the view that the output in parsing comprises discrete and multiple categories. Then, a…

Describes study to determine how native speakers would react to those second-language errors perceived by intermediate Spanish instructors as being most troublesome in their classes. Results show 90 percent or more of the native speakers could comprehend 40 of the 48 errors in sample. (Author/BK)

Reports on an experiment in native speaker judgement of acceptability, designed to test the acceptability of variations on the time-manner-place order in German adverbs. Implications for teaching German are drawn. (AM)

Research investigating the relationship between language and cognition (Lucy, 1992b) shows that speakers of languages with grammatical number marking (e.g. English) judge differences in the number of countable objects as more significant than differences in the number or amount of non-countable substances. On the other hand, speakers of languages…

This reference grammar is intended for adult speakers of English who are at the elementary through the intermediate levels of acquisition of the Slovene language. It begins with a brief description of the Slovene language, its major dialects and its place among the Slavic languages. Information on the alphabet, pronunciation, and spelling rules…

An introduction to this issue of "Langue Francaise," which is devoted to a study of the crisis in grammar instruction in French where French is the native language. The issue deals with grammar exercises from linguistic, psycholinguistic and pedagogical points of view. (Text is in French.) (AMH)

Results from an English acceptability-rating experiment are presented that demonstrate that people find doubly nested relative-clause structures just as acceptable when only two verb phrases are included instead of the grammatically required three. Three possible accounts of the results are considered. (Author/VWL)

Second-language (L2) learners differ from native speakers in how extensively (1) native-like success on one principle of universal grammar (UG) predicts success on other principles (lateral consistency) and (2) this level of success remains stable (longitudinal consistency). Research on Japanese as a second-language acquisition indicates that…

The aim of the present study was to determine whether processing of syntactic word information (lemma) is subserved by the same neural substrate as processing of conceptual or word form information (lexeme). We measured BOLD responses in 14 native speakers of German in three different decision tasks, each focussing specifically on one level of…

This study presents results from sentence-completion and grammaticality-judgment tasks with 7 German-speaking agrammatic aphasics and 7 age-matched control subjects examining tense and subject-verb agreement marking. For both experimental tasks, we found that the aphasics achieved high correctness scores for agreement, while tense marking was…

The correct use of German "bringen" and "nehmen" can pose problems for native speakers of English learning German. Students often use "nehmen" to express meanings rendered by English "take," which can result in sentences that are ungrammatical. This paper investigates the basic verbs of conveyance in German and English--"bringen," "nehmen,"…

While the noticing function of output has been increasingly researched by a number of applied linguists, the nature of such noticing and its effect on subsequent learning in the context of EFL writing have not been fully investigated. In a four-stage writing task consisting of output, comparison, and two revisions, this study examined what…

This paper looks at the acquisition of articles and related nominal functional properties (the status of classifier, the singular-plural distinction) in English and French by native speakers of Hong Kong Cantonese. Two experimental studies are reported. In the generative SLA literature, there is disagreement as to which properties of the grammar…