This paper examines the essential features of a group of constructions that belong to the family of complementary alternation discourse constructions in English. In this group of constructions, X and Y are two situations such that Y is less likely (or more likely) to happen than X. Each member of this group (X Let Alone Y, X Much Less Y, X Never…

Research on reported speech is old, but scholars working in this field are inclined to see its roots in Davidson's (1968) paratactic account of indirect reports. Although Davidson aimed at a "truth-conditional" theory of indirect reports which could challenge ideational, use, and psychological theories, his paratactic view--of which the…

This dissertation explores co-construction of a situated activity in a current unit by mainly focusing on hearers' actions. The "co-construction" involves a process of interaction in which speakers and hearers jointly construct the form and the meaning of ongoing utterances even when they disagree with each other (Jacoby & Ochs,…

Identifies various speech styles of English as marked by stance adverbials. Indicates that the discourse functions of stance adverbials differ considerably from the functions suggested by their literal meanings. (JK)

This study examines the basic question about the position of dicursivity with respect to language, arising from the axiomatic statements concerning linguistic sign, form and meaning as definition components of the structural conception of language. The book is divided into two sections: I. Axiomatics of Structural Linguistics, and II. Linguistics…

Report on a theory of articulation and communication of meaning, based on research by Piaget and Barbizet. Three steps are distinguished: discourse in Language X; the act of grasping the meaning outside the language of the discourse; and re-expression of the thought in Language Y. (Text is in French.) (AMH)

This monograph presents a descriptive analysis of the syntactic patterns in 16 corpora of word combinations from 11 infants learning either English (six children), Samoan, Finnish, Hebrew, or Swedish. The mean utterance lengths range up to about 1.7 morpehmes. There are both reanalyses of corpora in the literature and new corpora. The data…

A sketch of the development of functionalism in relation to other linguistic theories and a brief analysis of the present state of the research. Topics covered are: form versus function; the impasse between distributional and transformational grammar; and transformational grammar according to Harris. (Text is in French.) (AMH)

Presents accounts of theories locating the sources of the signifying capacities of words in their imbrication with nondiscursive structures and practices. Points out that a tradition of philosophical, linguistic, and semiotic theorizing has attempted to clarify what it is for words to have the meanings they do in terms of the relation of…

Investigates interaction between application of communicative strategies and narrative discourse features. The data draws upon research in narrative discourse collected from one student of Moroccan Arabic. The study suggests that the subject resorted to a number of strategies to compensate for her linguistic deficiencies and that application of…

Constituent structure is considered to be the very foundation of linguistic competence and often considered to be innate, yet we show here that it is derivable from the domain-general processes of chunking and categorization. Using modern and diachronic corpus data, we show that the facts support a view of constituent structure as gradient (as…

In a verbal memory study of language development, third- through sixth-grade children read and orally recalled short, expository passages which were presented in three syntactic paraphrase forms: (1) complex sentences with preverbal elaboration such as complex subject nominalizations and relative clauses, (2) complex sentences with postverbal…

The Thai Discourse Analysis Project seeks to provide a description of linguistic structures of importance in understanding the nature of Thai speech. Previous studies have been limited, and restricted to consideration of the written language and "literary" speech. The project consists of three phases: the acquisition of recorded texts,…

Discusses different kinds of discourse analysis and notes that they vary in their focus, claims, and techniques. Argues that the philosophical foundations of critical discourse analysis are open to serious question and that it relies on a naive sociological model involving an overambition undermining sound research. (72 references) (Author/CK)

This general bibliography on discourse and related topics lists over 350 books, articles, and papers, written between 1912 and 1971, covering a great variety of linguistic problems and issues. The subjects range from general topics such as "Nouns and Noun Phrases" and "Language as Symbolization" to such specialized articles as "Samoan…