Revised version of a paper supported by a National Science Foundation graduate fellowship. The universal base hypothesis states that all natural languages utilize the same base component in their transformational grammars. (DD)

An examination of the predicates "optional" and "obligatory" is made that suggests that they are far more appropriately viewed as derived rather than primitive notions, whose appropriate attributions follow in all cases from independent linguistic facts and principles of a much more general and more generally significant character. (Author/HP)

The effect of presuppositions on the applicability of grammatical rules is discussed. It is argued that the speaker's presupposition may cause a grammatical rule to become optional. (RM)

This paper examines form and meaning of a class of simple sentences in which various constituents are brought into focus by the speaker. The Akan language is used, and the syntactic processes, or focus-marking, required to derive surface structures of the sentences are examined. (CK)

This paper is concerned with the semantic, rather than the syntactic, nature of non-restrictive relativization, and its implications. (CK)

The article begins with a historical background of systemic generative grammar and continues with an analysis of it on a syntactic level. The topics examined are: grammatical output, functions and properties, form, embedding and discontinuity, coordinate constructions, immediate constituents, the lexicon, phonology and morphology, and semantics.…

Defines the difference between lexical and propositive nomination, and examines their interrelation. Clarification of syntactic problems allowed for by distinguishing nominative and communicative aspects of a sentence is discussed, and the relationship of semantic syntax to traditional syntactic theory is also discussed. (RM)

Research supported by the Fonds National belge de la Recherche Scientifique. (DD)