The acquisition of verbs may be more difficult than noun acquisition because verbs encode information that is inherently less stable and more ephemeral. A sorting-strategies method was utilized to analyze young children's acquisition of verb meaning. (DF)

An analysis of applicative constructions in Bantu languages proposes a typology of applicative structures, using examples from Ndendeule and Swahili. First, the basic facts about applicative constructions are presented, including those concerning morphology, meaning, and alternative expressions, and several arguments are posited. Primary objects…

An investigation of two sentence types in English and Spanish contrasts the syntactic features of each and examines the implications for second language instruction. Existential-presentative (ex-pr) and non-existential-presentative (pr) sentences are seen as an important tool for communication because they introduce an element that is…

Five experiments were performed in which nursery school children were taught to identify persons, animals, or objects in pictures that took the nominative, objective, or locative case in sentences about the pictures. Inferences are made about categories in children's thinking including animate, and actor and agent. (CTM)

This paper suggests methods for teaching the Russian verbs that govern what are loosely termed "objects" in oblique cases. The case government of such verbs is not necessarily an individual irregularity. Definite patterns emerge, both morphological and semantic, to facilitate grouping these verbs into classes. Russian verbs requiring genitive…

A computer-based artificial neural network (ANN) that learns to classify sentences in a text as important or unimportant is described. The program is designed to select the sentences that are important enough to be included in composition of an abstract of the text. The ANN is embedded in a conventional symbolic environment consisting of…

John Searle's treatment of declarations in his (1976) classification of speech acts is examined. Some acts that are classified as declarations by that theorist, especially certain ones relating to religious rituals and literary usage, do not fit the definition of that class and should be reclassified, either in another one of Searle's classes…

Hierarchies have been identified as determinants of constituent order. The set of such hierarchies is reviewed and ranked as determinants of NP sequencing in English. The effect of a hierarchy in other languages is compared to and contrasted with what is found in English. (Author/LMO)