This paper is concerned with the syntactic problems raised by the grammatical phenomenon in Japanese that is called here the "complementizer." In the types of sentences under consideration here, S2 is a nominal clause. Such a clause acts as a noun phrase adjunct to the verb in S1. The noun clauses in question are often followed by a…

These books are designed to help English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students learn the skills they need to communicate the step-by-step aspects of daily activities. Unlike most picture dictionaries, this is a verb-based multi-skills program that uses a student text with a clear and colorful pictorial detail as a starting point and focuses on the…

An experiment in Japan investigated the kind of input that is effective in enabling college-level students of English as a Second Language to formulate grammar, specifically prepositional and phrasal verbs. A grammaticality judgment test and a translation test were given to 131 Japanese university students, who were divided into three treatment…

Examines methodology used to determine a hierarchy of English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students' written error gravity and describes a new error substitution methodology for identifying the communicative interference effect of ESL errors on naive native speakers of English. Findings indicate that lexical and verb-related errors interfered with…

Shows that underlying first language (L1) and second language (L2) lexical similarities between typologically unrelated languages can benefit L2 vocabulary learning. The article's comparison of the use of motion verbs in English by Chinese- and Japanese-speaking learners indicates an advantage for Chinese speakers, whose L1 lexicalizes motion in a…

Compares indirect "wh"-questions and independent relatives, points to the absence of a clear-cut boundary between these two types of construction, and argues for the indispensability of semantic and pragmatic analysis for syntactic theory. The article emphasizes that it is the answer to a question that supplies the determinate element…

Examines the variable realization of the third person singular -s by Shona learners of English in Zimbabwe. Results reveal little morphological variability among elementary learners and a grammatical variability among intermediate learners that is sensitive to linguistic context and indicative of a tendency to inflect verbs to mark the third…

This paper concerns three two-stage experiments the aim of which was to find out whether enactment- and mime-based (E&M) instruction--a key element both of the method known as Total Physical Response and of some less codified instruction at primary level--can be employed in order to help learners: (1) better acquire English manner-of-movement…

This article investigates certain modal choices made by law students when writing in an English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) adjunct class, illustrating areas of concern and instances of successful development of ideas in extracts from first-year undergraduate law students' essays on a problem in tort law. The study compares judgements of teachers…

The 12-week program described here was designed to improve a Hebrew language immersion class' ability to correctly use the simple past and present tenses. The target group was a sixth-grade class that achieved a 65.68 percent error-free rate on a pre-test; the project's objective was to achieve 90 percent error free tests, using student…

Research on sex differences and language includes the following (many titles are English translations): "Language--The Child, the Women, the Family"; "Woman and Man"; "In Society's Words"; "The Life of Words"; "Verbs and Women"; "Lines from a Ladies Luncheon"; "The History of the Danish Language"; "How Sex Roles Are Represented and Conserved in…

A study analyzed the ability of 31 advanced students of English as a Second Language (ESL) to monitor their own use of article and verb errors in their compositions. Subjects were 31 foreign graduate students enrolled in an advanced composition course at Iowa State University. The two categories of grammatical errors were monitored in three…

This paper is based on research that aims to provide evidence of which approach, contrastive analysis (CA) or error analysis (EA), is more adequate in dealing with errors in tense formation and usage made by Greek learners of English. A contrastive analysis of the English and Greek tense systems, providing points of correspondence and divergence…

Advanced learners of second languages and natural language processing systems both demand much more detailed lexical information than conventional dictionaries provide. Text composition, whether by humans or machines, requires a thorough understanding of relationships between words, such as selectional restrictions, case patterns, factives, and…

The methodology reported in this paper argues for a synthesis of various theories and methods. First, a synopsis is given of the pedagogical and linguistic approaches that should underlie a successful attempt to teach the contrast in two verb tenses in Portuguese. Secondly, a contrast unique to Portuguese is examined and a multistage approach for…