This article discusses the relationship between the linguistic description of language and the speaker's acquisition and use of language, with specific reference to the role of paradigmatic and syntagmatic relationships in the acquisition of definition as a linguistic behavior. (Text is in French.) (AM)

Various theories are presented in support of a rationist approach to linguistics. (Author/HP)

Teaching should reflect the facts of current language usage. This descriptive approach, when applied to reading, means that the child's reading education should focus on the realities of daily life. Syntactic analysis in reading has been handicapped by an overemphasis on lexical content at the expense of other syntactic structures. Thus, the…

This paper examines aspects of variation in child language, and specifically how children express causal relations in complex sentences. Four particular types of variation were observed: (1) the order of clauses and the connectives used to link clauses; (2) mothers' causal statements; (3) interaction of language form and content, in the form of…

American Sign Language (ASL) is historically related to French Sign Language (FSL) of the early 19th century. A study underway at Gallaudet College is researching the historical development of both languages treating syntax, lexicon and formation. This paper deals with data in the form of still photos collected in France and published in a…

This book presents a discussion of various distinctive characteristics of English as spoken in Canada. The book begins with a discussion of general characteristics and a look at the origins of Canadian English. There is a discussion of Canadianisms, Americanisms, and Britishisms and a consideration of influencing languages--Indian and Eskimo,…

This is a report on an on-going research project sponsored jointly by the Speech and Hearing Clinic of the University of Oregon Medical School and Portland State University. The book contains a brief historical review of the study of speech in normal children in recent years. Then follows a structural description of the language used by each of 25…

Some aspects of a theory of grammar are presented which derive from a formal theory of language acquisition. One aspect of the theory is a universal constraint on analyzability known as the Freezing Principle, which supplants a variety of constraints proposed in the literature. A second aspect of the theory is the Invariance Principle, a…

This compilation contains the following research reports on child language: (1) "Nouns: Love 'Em or Leave 'Em" by Dianne Horgan; (2) "Logic in Early Child Language" by Roy D. Pea; and (3) "Theories of the Child's Acquisition of Syntax: A Look at Rare Events and at Necessary, Catalytic, and Irrelevant Components of…

This report is a detailed empirical examination of Suppes' ideas about the syntax and semantics of natural language, and an attempt at supporting the proposal that model-theoretic semantics of the type first proposed by Tarski is a useful tool for understanding the semantics of natural language. Child speech was selected as the best place to find…

It is possible to observe phonological innovations in Quechua B in purely linguistic terms, abandoning the use of dialects and subdialects. Isolect and lect are used instead. A particular speech form, with respect to a particular innovation, is an isolect in one of three possible ways: it lacks the innovation; it has the innovation as a variable…

This collection of six papers consists of works in progress undertaken by students and faculty of the University of Pennsylvania's Language in Education Division of the Graduate School of Education. The papers are: (1) "Language Planning and Identity Planning: An Emergent Understanding" (Rebecca Freeman); (2) "Communicative…