Supports the theory that phonic units cannot be delimited without reference to conceptual units, and that there must be a mutual dependence of sound and meaning in language. (DS)

This article is a reply to Kuno et al. 1999, which claims that a structural approach to scope should be replaced by an expert system. (Author/VWL)

Attempts to provide a precise definition for topic and to derive most of the properties of topic from this definition. The main assumption is that the topic-comment construction is a syntactic device employed to fulfill certain discourse functions. (Author/VWL)

Argues that English intonational structure and surface syntactic structure are one and can be captured in a single unified grammar. The interpretations that the grammar provides for such constituents corresponds to the entities and open propositions of intonational meaning that have been described as "theme" and "rheme,""given" and "new," and…

Uses a detailed analysis of a single grammatical problem to present the principal commitments and mechanisms of a grammatical theory that assigns a central role to the notion of grammatical construction. The grammatical phenomenon used to introduce construction grammar is the construction that licenses the surprising syntactic and semantic…

Examines parallelisms between surface structure and logical structure and why those parallelisms do not extend farther than they do. If syntactic deep structures are identified with logical structures, an appropriate cyclic principle guarantees that cyclic rules will apply so that large-scale parallelisms exist between surface syntactic structures…

"Geminate inalterability" is the phenomenon whereby a rule affecting singleton segments fails to alter comparable geminates. A new theory is proposed attributing inalterability to prespecification: geminate (and singleton) inalterability follows solely from the Elsewhere Condition. (approximately 120 references) (Author/LB)

Argues that the account of coordination of unlike categories ought to be unified with the account of feature neutralization under phonological identity. Further argues that this unified account ought not be couched in terms of string of features, but rather in terms of the logic of categories. Study concludes with a discussion of the interactions…

In communicating, conversationalists constantly make decisions about their interlocutors' state of knowledge and on the basis of these decisions make lexical, grammatical, and intonational choices about how to manage the "flow" of information. This paper focuses on how such decision making affects choices in relative clause constructions…

Through corpus analysis and experimentation, this article demonstrates that both grammatical complexity (heaviness) and discourse status (newness) simultaneously and independently influence word order in two English constructions. Argues that heavy and new constituents facilitate the processes of planning and production. (Author/VWL)

Local inversion in English and Chichewa shows remarkable similarities that can be explained by hypothesizing the same underlying argument structures and principles for mapping argument structure roles into syntactic functions. However, profound typological differences between the two languages defy analysis within a widely assumed architecture of…

A microgenetic approach to studying grammatical morpheme learning uses longitudinal data from two children learning English in different ways. Eight general attributes of morphological systems are proposed that will promote or inhibit the emergence of filler syllables during development. (Contains 86 references.) (Author/LB)

Examined the development of principles of control in the grammar of 15 preschool children over a 9-month period, focusing on pronominal reference. The results confirm a developmental sequence that is driven by lexical learning and changing structural analyses. (38 references) (MDM)