This paper examines the formal means by which Czech distinguishes transitive and intransitive verbs, and specifically the role of the particle "se" in the process usually called "derived intransitivization.""Se" is shown to perform a number of functions which preclude its being called simply an "intransitivizing…

Hierarchies have been identified as determinants of constituent order. The set of such hierarchies is reviewed and ranked as determinants of NP sequencing in English. The effect of a hierarchy in other languages is compared to and contrasted with what is found in English. (Author/LMO)

Forty-eight American (L1) and 48 Dutch students (L2), half of whom had computer science backgrounds and half of whom did not, were tested for their use of either scientific text (ST) syntactic structures or the less difficult common syntax when writing technical discourse (in Appendix). Results indicate that both L1 and L2 technical writers wrote…

This book describes the phonological and grammatical structure of the whole-Dravidian language family from different aspects, examining its history and writing system, structure and typology, lexicon, and recent contacts between Dravidian and other language groups. The 11 chapters highlight the following: (1) "Introduction" (e.g., the…

This volume brings together the majority of lectures and papers presented at the 1998 and 1999 discourse symposia at Vaxjo University. Part one, "Four Perspectives on Discourse," offers a matrix perspective on narrative, a cross cultural perspective on academic rhetoric, a cognitive perspective on informational discourse, and a construction…

A computer program is described that is a substack of the "Business German" HyperCard program previously developed by Paulsell and designed as a tutorial to be used with materials for a business German course on the third year college level. The program consists of six stacks, a central one providing graphics-based information on Germany…

A study explored the use of a text-copying task for the determination of syntactic constituent structure. It was predicted that the task would be a naturalistic, reasonably direct, and sensitive psycholinguistic research method. In two experiments, 70 subjects wrote out copies of typed passages. The points where they paused and looked back to the…

This is a longitudinal study of a child's acquisition of Mandarin phonology between the ages of 1;2 and 2;8. During this period, the child was much less verbal than many children reported in other child phonology studies. The study consists of two parts. The first part is a description of the child's "proto-language," in which he used…

The development of sentence coordination in children using sentences conjoined by "and" was studied to test the adequacy of the transformationally based derivational theory of complexity. Two cross-sectional experiments were conducted using 18 sentence types with children between the ages of three and five. One experiment used an elicited…

Conceptual and syntactic strategies in reading a foreign language are considered with attention to the functioning of the sentence parser. Topics of analysis include: the theoretical background and the educational relevance of the question of strategies; a study of the relative importance of the two parsing principles (syntactically guided…

This paper attempts to give a unified view of the workings of noun clauses. These are considered according to three main types corresponding to three different kinds of source sentences. All three types can be used in any usual noun-phrase function, especially subject, direct object, and prepositional object. Four factors which complicate the…

Research in linguistics (theoretical, socio- and psycho-linguistics) on relative clause formation is reveiwed in order to determine the advisability of teaching this construction in English as a second language (ESL) classes. It is suggested that research on other constructions can lead to implications for teaching these constructions when there…

A glossary of commonly used grammatical terms that would be useful to students and teachers of French is presented here. Although not complete, it offers basic definitions in English of grammatical forms and functions as well as examples in French of each term defined. The definitions cover parts of speech, grammatical functions, sentences,…

Six reading textbook series and two standardized reading tests were examined for their uses of 16 syntax structures and the sequential patterns of increasing complexity of syntax structures within each series. Results were as follows: although the series showed overall increases in complexity across the six grades, the increases were not…

These two units of the Minnesota Project English curriculum employ transformational grammar in an attempt to make eighth-grade students aware of fundamental facts about their language. Concepts taught in the first unit are (1) that an infinite number of English sentences exists, (2) that a few basic transformations are the basis for a large number…