Five types of Verb Phrase (VP) anaphors which appear to exist in free variation actually have specific grammatical, semantic, and rhetorical functions which account for the existence of some to the exclusion of others in certain syntactic environments. The five anaphors are: "do so,""do it," Verb Phrase Deletion (VPD), VPD with…

Inverted sentence order (order other than subject-verb-object) may be used to mimic the rhythm of real dialogue; give the play-by-play announcer time to come up with the player's name; indicate the relative importance of the subject, verb, and object; distribute information; and indicate connection with prior information. As a stylistic option,…

One problem with readability formulas is that they are generally calculated on factors at the sentence and subsentence level. However, the representation of text through information structures is equally important. The complexity of information structures and their realizations will affect reading difficulty and should be incorporated into…

This paper aims to account for what at first appears to be a unique constraint in the formation of A-not-A questions. Most previous analyses employ the pragmatic notion of focus. This paper argues in favor of a presuppositional account, which has wide empirical coverage and is independently motivated and more theoretically coherent than the notion…

Examines the relationship between form and use of the reformulation sequence signalled by "c'est-a-dire" in written French and describes this sequence's various functions. The article attempts to show how a modular approach consisting of structural, semantic, pragmatic, and textual components contributes to a new and accurate description of…

Object deletion in Classical Arabic is semantically marked on two levels: ( 1) dropping the object deliberately but functionally; and (2) emptying the object slot and focusing on the verbal action. The second level of object deletion stresses the verbal action. (20 references) (GLR)

In order to account for the ways in which combined and decombined sentences work, and to determine why some texts are perceived as being well-written and others are perceived as poor and ineffective, 11 texts were selected for distribution to students for ranking, all on the same topic--the Civil War. Overall, students ranked Bruce Catton's "Grant…

Attempts to distinguish the role of the structure of a message in determining the different modalities of decodification and memorization in oral discourse based on the theories and experiments of Ragnar Rommetveit of the Oslo School. (CFM)

A 2-year study of optimal structures for multimedia instruction is being conducted to provide experimentally validated guidelines for the design of computer-based instruction generation systems and for human instruction in a multimedia setting. In order to obtain for analysis a significant range of the possible discourse structures that occur in…

Describes ongoing research aimed toward finding a minimum discourse grammar to help Brazilian students learning English for special purposes to cope with the sort of texts they have to read in their own disciplines. The research has involved review of scientific philosophy, a reading miscue study, and a comparison of English and Portuguese…

It is proposed that the notion of "address" is neither meaning nor form but that it designates the form which designates meaning. It is therefore in a position underlying both form and meaning. (AMH)

Compares the quality and syntactic complexity of 2 types of essays written by 44 college freshmen in a basic writing course. Essays dealing with group-phenomenon events (intensification) had more words per clause, but received lower quality scores than essays dealing with individually experienced events (initiation). (PAA)

Contrastive analysis is viewed as an interlinguistic, bidirectional phenomenon which is concerned with both the form and function of language. As such, contrastive analysis must view language psycholinguistically and sociolinguistically as a system to be both described and acquired. Due to the need for a psychological component in the analysis,…

Discusses the ways languages of Europe render the "given"-"new" distinction on the basis of data collected by means of presenting speakers of various languages with the task of reconstructing a route on a map. The article raises questions about the nature of "wh"-pronouns in English and about what is shared by these…

Examines the variable realization of the third person singular present tense by learners of English as a Second Language at elementary and intermediate levels of proficiency in unplanned discourse in South Africa. (35 references) (Author/CK)