The effects of semantic and syntactic complexity on the reading comprehension of content-area prose were investigated among 92 adolescents with learning disabilities. Subjects who read passages that had been modified syntactically or both syntactically and semantically exhibited improved comprehension. Semantic modifications alone did not affect…

Reports on two experiments comparing the adequacy of naturalistic procedures in emotion-display research with standard procedures. The first experiment explored samples of naturally-occurring emotional speech with free-choice emotion labels, and later with labels from a standard set. The second compared valency ratings of words presented…

A study examined the process of grammaticalization in American Sign Language, examining basic principles and patterns and drawing parallels with oral language. More advanced stages of grammaticalization (involving fusion and affecting syntax) are examined in depth, leading to proposal of a temporal-ordering analysis to explain sequencing of verbal…

Three questions were asked that explored the linguistic fine-tuning hypothesis and how parents might model language: (i) do parents significantly tune to their children's productive language or non-verbal cognition during play? (ii) is the level of the linguistic tuning different in the Down syndrome (DS) population compared to a typically…

Research and theory on language acquisition and language socialization are examined and compared. The language acquisition perspective is that the central question is how children acquire forms and patterns of language, with syntax at the core, so early and so rapidly. From the viewpoint of language socialization, the issue is not only of…

An investigation of two sentence types in English and Spanish contrasts the syntactic features of each and examines the implications for second language instruction. Existential-presentative (ex-pr) and non-existential-presentative (pr) sentences are seen as an important tool for communication because they introduce an element that is…

The influence of five programs of the Mt. Druitt Early Childhood Project on the development of preschool children's vocabulary and syntactical skills was assessed in a pretest/posttest design. Programs differed in the amount of structure they imposed on the language experiences of the children and in the content they specified. Different measures…

Short essays written by 60 secon d and third grade children were analyzed in order to compare the global quality with the syntactic maturity contained therein. Global quality is a broad measure of the level of ability and development evidenced by the pupil in his particular writing. Syntactic maturity is a measure based on the existence of various…

Hungarian-Russian bilingual preschoolers, in general, paid more attention to allomorphy than did monolingual Hungarian or Russian peers in interpreting transitive sentences with varying word orders. (Author/CB)

Examines the degree to which Latin words and phrases are integrated into English and American legal texts. Compares introductory and advanced textbooks to legal documents for relative frequency of Latin words and phrases and level of integration into the text. Examples of each level are presented. (Author/LMO)

Concludes that (1) pointed Hebrew text was read more accurately and rapidly than unpointed text by both adults and children who were fluent readers, and (2) both groups displayed significant effects for context richness, word frequency, and type of Hebrew text. (FL)

Discusses results of comparison of immersion and minority language programs. By promoting use of the mother tongue inside and outside of school, providing literacy experiences for children who may not have had them, and using culturally relevant teaching approaches and materials, schools can make education a worthwhile experience for members of…

This study analyzed the grammatical features of two classes of words in Japanese, adjectives and adjectival nouns. Both have functions similar to those of English adjectives, but their behaviors differ syntactically or morphologically from each other. Differences in psychological processes, evident in both lexical retrieval processes and native…

Using semantic analysis as a basis, examines the wide variety of syntactic and semantic functions of "got" and the parallel structures present in Spanish. (EKN)

Compared to 12 normally achieving students, 12 language-impaired high school students had significantly poorer comprehension of humor elements of riddles, jokes, and puns classified according to their phonological, morphological, or syntactic elements. Especially poor were subjects' ability to grasp the nature of multimeaning words and to segment…