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Newmeyer, Frederick J. – Language, 1992
A theme running through much of the functionalist literature in linguistics is that grammatical structure often has an "iconic" motivation. Claims supporting this theme are discounted, and the implications are discussed of iconic relationships in language for the autonomy hypothesis and the evolution of language. (190 references)…
Descriptors: Generative Grammar, Generative Phonology, Linguistic Theory, Syntax
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Steedman, Mark – Language, 1991
Argues that English intonational structure and surface syntactic structure are one and can be captured in a single unified grammar. The interpretations that the grammar provides for such constituents corresponds to the entities and open propositions of intonational meaning that have been described as "theme" and "rheme,""given" and "new," and…
Descriptors: English, Grammar, Intonation, Linguistic Theory
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Ward, Gregory; And Others – Language, 1991
Argues that "outbound anaphora," contrary to the argument of Postal, is fully grammatical and governed by independently motivated pragmatic principles. The felicity of outbound anaphora is demonstrated to be a function of the accessibility of the discourse entity that is evoked by the word-internal element and to which the anaphor is…
Descriptors: Linguistic Theory, Morphology (Languages), Pragmatics, Semantics
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Fiengo, Robert; May, Robert – Language, 1995
Maintains that Edwin Williams has not properly appreciated or presented the central theses of "Indices and Identity" (I&I). The article also states that criticisms of particular analyses offered are consistently off the mark. This discussion note is presented as a clarification of the issues presented. The central concern in I&I is with the nature…
Descriptors: Book Reviews, Pronouns, Reading Comprehension, Sentence Structure
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Bayer, Samuel – Language, 1996
Argues that the account of coordination of unlike categories ought to be unified with the account of feature neutralization under phonological identity. Further argues that this unified account ought not be couched in terms of string of features, but rather in terms of the logic of categories. Study concludes with a discussion of the interactions…
Descriptors: Cluster Grouping, Codification, Grammar, Language Typology
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Meier, Richard P.; Newport, Elissa L. – Language, 1990
Discusses recent research that has examined the early stages of language development in signed and spoken languages as well as suggestions that there is an advantage for the acquisition of signed languages. Specific attention is focused on whether or not a single timing mechanism underlies early milestones in the acquisition of both vocabulary and…
Descriptors: American Indian Languages, Language Acquisition, Language Research, Sign Language
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Arnold, Jennifer E.; Wasow, Thomas; Losongco, Anthony; Ginstrom, Ryan – Language, 2000
Through corpus analysis and experimentation, this article demonstrates that both grammatical complexity (heaviness) and discourse status (newness) simultaneously and independently influence word order in two English constructions. Argues that heavy and new constituents facilitate the processes of planning and production. (Author/VWL)
Descriptors: Cognitive Processes, Computational Linguistics, Discourse Analysis, English
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Bresnan, Joan – Language, 1994
Local inversion in English and Chichewa shows remarkable similarities that can be explained by hypothesizing the same underlying argument structures and principles for mapping argument structure roles into syntactic functions. However, profound typological differences between the two languages defy analysis within a widely assumed architecture of…
Descriptors: American Indian Languages, Comparative Analysis, Contrastive Linguistics, English