Presentations from a colloquium on applications of research on natural languages to computer science address the following topics: (1) analysis of complex adverbs; (2) parser use in computerized text analysis; (3) French language utilities; (4) lexicographic mapping of official language notices; (5) phonographic codification of Spanish; (6)…

Edward Sapir's 1921 publication, "Language, An Introduction to the Study of Speech" is interpreted for beginning students of historical and descriptive linguistics. In his book, Sapir attempts to show (1) what he thinks language is, (2) what variables occur in language due to time and place, and (3) the relationship of language and…

A 9-month study of a 1-year-old child's acquisition of the pronunciation of "camera" is presented. The data show that while the child can articulate and perceive all the phonological segments of the adult form, she uses an idiosyncratic child-based form when she spontaneously draws from her lexicon to produce an utterance, systematically modifying…

A systematic analysis of the French interrogative focuses on the distinction between the syntactic processes (identification of question words, interrogative phrase preposing, and rules of question formation) and phonological processes (intonation patterns) that characterize questions in French. (Author/MSE)

Explores how some contemporary language usage presents challenges for technical editing and how awareness of language theory can help students expand their context for (and critically assess) current editing textbook advice on language choice. Discusses what editors and teachers of editing can do to help produce technical documents that address…

Descriptive grammars based on sets of rewrite rules were constructed to summarize the structure and organization of 120 entries in a second grade student's journal of class news. These rules illuminated the relationship between experience, abstraction, and generation of structure, and the use of structure to express complex thoughts. (PMJ)

To assist language researchers in their analysis of interlanguage, some values for the linguistic variables of Source Language (SL), Interlanguage (IL), and Target Language (TL) are set forth. Although the fundamental assumption underlying interlanguage research is that interlanguages are linguistic systems, it is difficult to describe the…