Oral reading passages are often used to elicit speech samples from clinical populations. Few objective guidelines exist, however, to guide one's selection from among the many existing passages. Therefore, this study was undertaken to describe phonetic, lexical, and structural characteristics of 15 oral reading passages. The passages differed…

Examines negative polarity items in English and Korean and argues that a consistent explanation emerges if certain assumptions are entertained about indefiniteness and concession by arbitrary choice. The article maintains that the logical consequences of monotone decreasingness is transparent with strong negatives but less so with weaker ones. (18…

A group of syntactic studies, primarily concerning English and German, within the framework of generalized phrase structure grammar include: "English Adverb Placement in Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar" (Belinda L. Brodie), concerning the placement of modal, evaluative, temporal, and verb phrase adverbs; "Syntactic Conditions on Two Types of…

Presents a comparative semantic analysis of English, French, and Dutch transitive constructions that takes into account the entity that sets the event in motion, the object it affects, and the process that links both. (18 references) (Author/CK)

Investigates the differences in form and meaning between the Dutch and English passives, attributing the differences to the passive auxiliaries that signal a process and a state for Dutch and English. The article is aided by the framework of Langacker's (1991) cognitive grammar. (30 references) (Author/CK)

States the differences between the classes of structures that admit a progressive interpretation in English and Japanese and discusses progressive aspect in these two languages on the basis of proposed universally valid definitions. It is concluded that the contrastive behavior of the English "be-ing" construction and the Japanese…

Tests the understanding of French pronominal-verbal constructions on native and English speakers of French and assesses their sensitivity to the possible multiple readings such as: reflexive, reciprocal, intrinsic, and passive. The article attributes the superior performance of English speakers to the corresponding morphosyntactic and lexical…

Discusses the relative merits of feature versus model based semantics for the interpretation of verb phrases in English, French, and German. The article concludes that the simplicity afforded by features is offset by the depth of analysis achieved with event models that are additionally able to support a sophisticated approach to machine…