For monolingual English-speaking children, judgment and production of stress in derived words, including words with phonologically neutral (e.g., -ness) and non-neutral suffixes (e.g., "-ity"), is important to both academic vocabulary growth and to word reading. For Mandarin-speaking adult English learners (AELs) the challenge of…

A common characteristic of subject-predicate agreement errors (usually termed attraction errors) in complex noun phrases is an asymmetrical pattern of error distribution, depending on the inflectional state of the nouns comprising the complex noun phrase. That is, attraction is most likely to occur when the head noun is the morphologically…

The present study is an attempt to account for current changes taking place in the behaviour of what are commonly taken to be stress-neutral endings in contemporary British English. The methodological framework being that of Lionel Guierre, this study aims for comprehensive coverage, via a survey of Guierre's original database (which was initially…

Examines patterns of discrepancies in English and Spanish spelling, at the phonetic and morphological level, that result in orthographic false cognates. Twenty-two patterns are revealed at the phonetic level and 21 patterns are revealed at the morphological level (derivational affixes)--7 in prefixes and 12 in suffixes. (MLS)

Three- to nine-year-olds' (N=80) post-exposure production of regular and irregular suffixes indicated that subjects found it easier to learn a regular suffix when they heard it used with phonetically similar base forms. Subjects were more likely to overgeneralize the regular suffix to irregular forms when they had heard it used in conjunction with…

Offers a detailed analysis of the English suffix "-ee" (employee, refugee, etc.) based on 1,500 naturally occurring tokens of 500 word types. Argues that certain semantic constraints, taken together, amount to a special-purpose thematic role that actively constrains productive use of derivational morphology. (Author/MSE)

Comparison of the 1970 and 1984 editions of a Spanish dictionary regarding the accommodation of female counterparts of traditionally male occupations found such adjustments as use of the feminine article "la" and the suffixes "-a" and "-nta." Other nouns proved to be particularly resistant to such accommodation. (CB)

The results of three experiments investigating where native speakers have a morpheme boundary between stems and word-final English derivational suffixes are reported. The way speakers organize phonological data is demonstrated. The results challenge the generative phonological hypothesis of maximal generalization and assumptions concerning…

The success of the suffixes "-tique" and "-ciel" in invading the French language in the form of neologisms is examined. An interview with a specialist in linguistics and information sciences concerning the development and usage of these suffixes is included. (MSE)

Normal students (N=65) in fourth, sixth, and eighth grades were compared to 17 learning-disabled ninth graders on learning derivational morphology and spelling derived forms. Disabled students' knowledge of derivational morphology was equivalent to that of normal sixth graders, but spelling of derived forms was equivalent to that of fourth…

Reports on research on the acquisition of adjectives vs inflectional endings in Italian children. Patterns resulting from a longitudinal study involving two children and an experiment involving 84 children are compared to patterns of adults participating in the latter experiment. (Author/AM)

All the irregularities of all common French verbs are reduced to five categories in the "passe simple." This system facilitates learning the tense without memorizing each irregular verb independently. (PMJ)

The nature and source of onomatopeic words in Spanish are discussed in order of decreasing resemblance to the sound imitated. The first group of onomatopeic words are the interjections, in which sound effects and animal sounds are expressed. Repetition is often used to enhance the effect. The second group includes verbs and nouns derived from the…

This study relates the suffix "-age" to "-able,""-eux,""-ment,""-Xtion," and "-ure" in Quebec French. Morphologically, some "-age" suffixals which can be denominal in Quebec French can only be deverbal in European French. Semantically, "-age" deverbals are subdivided…

Examines the syntactic aspects of affixation and compounding, processes accounting for the great majority of new word formations documented in "6,000 Words" (1976). (AM)