A study, investigating the patterns in which Chinese learners of English as a second language (ESL) learn English interrogative structures, focused on four major classes of English questions (yes/no, wh-, alternative, and embedded) categorized into seven structural types. Data came from a test requiring rapid translation of 55 Chinese questions.…

The theoretical linguistic distinction between assertion and presupposition was empirically tested with two groups of subjects, young children acquiring English as their first language and adults acquiring English as a second language. (Author)

Studies on second-language acquisition of reflexives have experienced difficulties assessing learners' knowledge of the binding principles because of problems associated with ambiguous sentences where there is more than one antecedent for a reflexive. In this study, English-as-a-Second-Language students were tested using a variety of sentence…

A study examined the relationship between syntactic complexity and overall accuracy in the written English of 30 advanced learners of English from five different native language groups. Results show similar patterns of error distribution, a similar level of relative strength in syntax, and relative weakness in morphology. (Author/MSE)