Riemer (2009) complains that a large number of sentences, despite appearing to be acceptable to many native speakers of English--including himself--are treated as ungrammatical in recent works that subscribe to the generative approach to (the English) language. In his opinion, this need not be considered "as evidence of an overly narrow…

This paper considers the way in which a grammar must account for the speaker's knowledge of sentence force as opposed to sentence form or meaning and the way in which this force is related to a sentence. According to the performative analysis approach, the force of each sentence should be stated explicitly as a part of the underlying…

A CHARACTERISTIC PROPERTY OF CERTAIN TYPES OF SENTENCE EMBEDDING IN ENGLISH IS THE DELETION OF THE INITIAL NOUN PHRASE OF THE EMBEDDED SENTENCE WHEN THE NOUN PHRASE IS IDENTICAL TO SOME NOUN PHRASE IN THE MAIN SENTENCE. EXAMPLES OF THIS PHENOMENON ARE SENTENCES LIKE "JOHN CONDESCENDED TO GO" AND "JOHN DEFIED BILL TO GO."…

The present volume is directed toward the reader wanting to begin a study of linguistics but who is "overwhelmed by the amount of material available, much of it too technical for him to understand." The author has attempted to provide both theory and applications and has limited the scope to English transformational grammar. Exercises at the end…

The system described in this report is designed for use as a computational tool that allows a linguist to develop and study methods for generating surface strings from an underlying semantic structure. Initial findings with regard to form-determiners (such as voice, form, tense, and mood), some rules for embedding sentences, and some attention to…

The papers in this volume describe computer runs with six different transformational grammars, in each case using the computer system for transformational grammar described in AL 002 220. They are collected as examples which, it is hoped, will encourage other linguistics to use the system. The motivation for the first three projects described was…

This study investigated the impact of English linguistics on elementary school English textbooks published during the decade 1961-1970. The study examined seventeen sixth grade English texts in order to determine trends in the treatment of English grammar. Data were divided to show contrasts between texts published before Roberts' Series…

This volume of working papers includes two papers concerned with syntactic analysis in English. The first paper deals with a number of problems that arise in conjunction with the necessary, allowed, or disallowed coreferentiality of a complement sentence subject with some noun-phrase in a higher sentence. The author seeks to prove that the…

Three aspects of existential sentences in English and Polish are discussed, and on the basis of the considerations of the logical and structural characteristics of existential sentences, some conclusions are drawn concerning the deep structure and derivation of these sentences. (Available from: See FL 508 214.) (RM)

"THE SOUND PATTERN OF ENGLISH" PRESENTS A THEORY OF SOUND STRUCTURE AND A DETAILED ANALYSIS OF THE SOUND STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF GENERATIVE GRAMMAR. IN THE PREFACE TO THIS BOOK THE AUTHORS STATE THAT THEIR "WORK IN THIS AREA HAS REACHED A POINT WHERE THE GENERAL OUTLINES AND MAJOR THEORETICAL PRINCIPLES ARE FAIRLY CLEAR" AND…

The comprehension of deviant sentences is dependent on several linguistic variables. Grammaticalness (G), meaningfulness (M), and familiarity (F) are three variables which are potentially such. In order to study the effect of violating these variables upon Ss' responses to deviant sentences, 85 deviant and 15 correct sentences were assigned to…

This paper proposes a set of hypotheses on the nature of interrogration as a possible language universal. Examples and phrase structure rules and diagrams are given. Examining Tamazight and English, genetically unrelated languages with almost no contact, the author distinguishes two types of interrogation: (1) general, querying acceptability to…