Standard criticisms of unjustified grammaticality assignments in generative syntax are easily countered by reminders that grammaticality is a different notion from acceptability. In response, the criticisms are reformulated here in a way that interprets unjustified assignments as possible evidence of the predictive failure of current generative…

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…

The production of verbal operants not previously taught is an important aspect of language productivity. For Skinner, new mands, tacts, and autoclitics result from the recombination of verbal operants. The relation between these mands, tacts, and autoclitics is what linguists call "analogy," a grammatical pattern that serves as a foundation on…

Describes a research project intended to develop a description, within a generative model, of British Sign Language grammar, with particular focus on time expressions. (AM)

This study aims at verifying whether Portuguese gender-inflected nouns and adjectives are represented as full forms as suggested by Spanish data (Dominguez, Cuetos, & Segui, 1999). A series of lexical decision experiments is reported. Grammatical gender, frequency dominance, and grammatical category are manipulated and cumulative frequency is…

This article assumes the value of a scientifically grounded, rhetorically focused, professionally supported, and publicly embraced grammar within the public schools and examines the past century of practices within the United States from that perspective. It describes a brief renaissance in the 50's and early 60's, inspired largely by the…

Describes a course for preservice English teachers on descriptive grammar. Discusses definitions and aims and what to do about traditional grammar; transformational-generative grammar; language acquisition; and applied grammar. Presents teaching strategies. (RS)

The ability of the computer to generate output not included in the input may be used for linguistic as well as for computational input. The ability to accept linguistic data and process it according to a certain program seems to be a promising field for investigation. Progress in this field may strengthen the assumption that the computer can be…

This discussion of the use of computer programming in syntactic analysis covers three major points: (1) a review of basic notions in automatic grammars; (2) a description of the grammar used in a pilot project which analysed the linguistic content of methods of teaching foreign languages; and (3) proposals on the application of the same techniques…