Discusses "end-weight," long, complex phrases that tend to come at the end of clauses. Corpus data on heavy noun phrase shift, the dative alternation, and particle movement indicate that there are several structural measures of weight highly correlated with constituent ordering. (38 references) (Author/CK)

Analyzes the rightward movement of noun and prepositional phrases in the Early Old English poem "Beowulf." Evidence is provided for heavy noun phrase shift, with a characteristic major intonational boundary between the main verb and the postponed noun phrase, and preposition phrase extraposition, where the intonational boundary was much…

Investigated how prosodic cues in motherese assisted infants' language acquisition. Infants oriented longer to speech interrupted at clausal boundaries than to matched speech interrupted at within-clause locations. The prosodic qualities of motherese provided infants with cues to units of speech that corresponded to grammatical units of language.…

Examination of how French second language learners construct rules for French relativiser morphology found that learners did not make use of a theory of markedness like the accessibility hierarchy for relativization, but rather appeared to construct rules on the basis of the linear ordering of the constituents of restrictive relative clauses in…

Proposes that the optional subject phenomenon in early child language arises because children have not yet acquired the morphological elements (primarily modal and tense) necessary to distinguish subject-taking verbs (e.g., finite verbs) from their non-subject-taking counterparts (e.g., infinitives). (Author/CB)

Twenty different monologues were analyzed; and the interrelating roles that clause relations, lexico-grammatical cohesion, and intonation choices play in creating cohesive monologue were examined. It is argued that these linguistic resources can be exploited by speakers to signal underlying concepts and help listeners interpret the text. (Contains…

Argues that formal English is a prestige dialect containing select constructions so unnatural as to be outside the domain of normal language acquisition. Among these are nominative pronouns used as conjoined subjects. Prestige usage is unavailable for consistent use. While formal education may have some effect on normal usage, that effect is…

A study investigated the effectiveness of teaching French cleft constructions (e.g., "qui est-ce qui...) by three methods: in a contextual presentation; traditionally; and in a presentation influenced by syntactic theory and explaining the internal structure of the phrases. Results suggest formal grammar instruction should focus on familiar…

Claims that complex noun phrases in technical writing materials present major comprehension difficulties for a variety of readers. Establishes methods for paraphrasing complex noun phrases into shorter and simpler structures. Applies principles outlined to a short legal text. (HB)

Presents an account of existential "there"-sentences in which the postverbal negative phrase (NP) is required to represent a "hearer-new" entity. The article identifies five types of formally definite yet hearer-new NPs that may occur in "there"-sentences. The restriction against definite NPs in "there"-sentences results from a mismatch in…

Outlines the kinds of idiosyncrasies the phrasal lexicon contains and the problems they create for learners and nonnative teachers of English as a foreign language. Suggests ways in which some English for special purposes programs might benefit from research based nonnative performance in specialized varieties. (Author/VWL)

Forty monolingual, Puerto Rican, Spanish-speaking children (ages 2-3) were given two tasks designed to obligate production of nominative and object pronouns in both reflexive and non-reflexive forms. In contrast to English-speaking children, these children demonstrated a pattern in which nominate-pronoun use preceded object-case use. (Author/CR)

Explores the role of lexical phrases in language teaching. Lexical phrases are an important feature in language use and language acquisition and offer advantages for language teaching. (Author/VWL)

The research investigated the time course of integrative semantic processing during sentence processing. Reading time was measured on sentences containing an NP composed of an adjective and a noun whose combined meaning was plausible or anomalous (Experiment 1) or was typical or atypical (Experiment 2). The noun in the NP was either plural or…

This study investigates the avoidance of English phrasal verbs by Chinese learners. Six groups of Chinese learners (intermediate and advanced; a total of 70) took one of 3 tests multiplechoice, translation, or recall, which included literal and figurative phrasal verbs, while 15 native speakers took the multiple-choice test. The results show that…