The present experiments investigate the influence of modifier relation frequency and discourse context on the interpretation of novel noun-noun phrases (as measured by both the ease of interpretation and the types of interpretations that are provided). We assess whether people access knowledge about the relations with which the modifier is…

The structure of natural conversations in first-grade classrooms is the focus of this inquiry. Analyses of a particular type of discourse, namely, connected conversations initiated and sustained by questioning, suggest that the probability that a conversation will be continued may be expressed as a simple exponential function. (Author/RM)

This essay explores the metaphors of language and conversation as a way to connect thought and action in understanding teaching. The goal of the essay is to look more closely at the influence of context and situation on the conversation of teachers--not only a means of interaction, communication, and thought but also a type of relationship with…

Kuno's direct discourse analysis is examined and rejected, and the Prague School concepts of theme and rheme are shown to be relevant to Kuno's data and additional data. It is further shown that an incompatible application of two or more transformations produces sentences that tend to be bad. (SC)

It is contended that there are such things as discourse blocs, and that they are composed of discourse units glued together into a contextuated whole by bloc signals. There are three kinds of structures with which it is necessary to deal in order to discuss coherent discourse: the discourse bloc, the discourse unit, and the bloc signal.…

THIS STUDY WAS DESIGNED TO TEST THE HYPOTHESIS THAT ASSOCIATIVELY RELATED NOUNS EMBEDDED IN CONNECTED DISCOURSE--AT LEAST IN THE CASE OF ITEMS THAT APPEAR IN THE SAME OR IN CONTIGUOUS SENTENCES--ARE STORED MORE EFFICIENTLY THAN ASSOCIATIVELY UNRELATED NOUNS. A 2X2 FACTORIAL DESIGN WAS EMPLOYED (WITH 20 SS IN EACH GROUP) IN WHICH SS WERE ASKED TO…

The author describes a program in guided writing instruction designed to help beginning students of English prepare for enrollment in American universities. The lessons were planned to develop the students' mechanics (the ability to spell, punctuate, and follow grammatical conventions), and some degree of competency (what to say, how to organize…

Information necessary to understand many English sentences appears to be supplied by a source outside the sentence which is composed of a fund of knowledge accumulated throughout life. This fund of knowledge may be visualized and a conceptual network into which the incomplete information supplied by a sentence can be mapped, thus making it…

Describes research in which a group of proficient speakers of a second language were tested in their ability to identify individual words taken from spoken discourse in both their native language and their second language. Results show that, on the average, they were more proficient in identifying words in their second rather than their first…

Presents an informal history and criticism of a rhetorical style that proposed a set of rules designed to pin words and syntax down so that a writer's meaning could not be misconstrued. Describes how the style was appropriated for textbook use by an innovative group of American writers during the mid-nineteenth century. (AEW)

Examines two texts showing that the relational propositions (frequently implicit) that arise out of a combination of independent clauses involve every clause and that they occur in a pattern of propositions that connects all of the clauses together. Shows how relational propositions are essential to the functioning of the text. (HTH)

This study examined how people use inferences to aid comprehension of connected discourse. (Author/RM)

Original Russian version of this paper appeared in To Honor Roman Jakobson,'' II: The Hague, Mouton, 1967. (RS)

Special issue devoted to language and history. (VM)