Revised version of a paper presented at the Spring Meeting of the Linguistics Association of Great Britain, York, April 1971. (DD)

Describes a comparative study of interrogative words in Spanish and English, which resulted in a series of hypotheses about the way Spanish speakers convey the interrogative how plus adjective or adverb. To test the hypotheses, surveys were conducted with native Spanish speakers. Surveys and results are discussed. (AMH)

A group of three-year-old children was compared to one of four-year-old children in the usage of 26 syntactic transformations on the basis of 60 utterances per child. The older group used significantly more sentence transformations per child and significantly fewer simple active declarative sentences than the younger. Among the older group 10 out…

To express that a degree of one event is conditioned by (or paralleled by) a degree of another, the "the...the..." construction with a comparative after each "the" is used. Examples include sentences such as: (1) the more dangerous mountains are to climb, the more challenging they are; (2) the more often a man has been in…

This article discusses the relationship in languages between passive forms and active forms from a psycholinguistic point of view. (Text is in French.) (CLK)

A data-based study done in Philadelphia examined the constraints on relative pronoun deletion and looked for a possible correlation to social stratification or stylistic variation. Restrictive relative clauses only are examined. Constraints appear to be due to performance factors related to sentence processing. (SCC)

Three examples are given of cases where differences between Spanish and English syntax and intonation patterns are taught best through direct translation. Grammatical difficulties caused by "gustar" are overcome through the use of translation using "appeal" rather than "please". Similarly, problems for native speakers of English arising with…

This article proposes use of one aspect of transformational-generative grammar as a simple explanation of the use of English articles. In this method, nouns are analyzed to determine their definiteness and whether they are countable, as tests for using "a" and "the." (CHK)

The properties of "do", its distribution and meaning, are discussed. "Do" is one of the most common error-zones for Indian learners of English. Two analyses of "do" which account for the distribution and meaning of this element are presented. According to the transformational approach, "do" is introduced in…

This study is divided into two sections: the first examines Standard French indirect interrogation, noting several distinct verb classes which are discussed in terms of permutations of WH-words, reduction, multiple WH-words, cleavage, semantic compatibility, and the "que-" completive; the second part focuses on indirect interrogation and…

Intended as an introduction to psycholinguistics from the linguist's point of view, this book addresses itself to three main topics: the innateness of language, the relationship of linguistic knowledge to language usage, and the comprehension and production of speech. In 12 chapters, the book discusses the nature of language development, the…

TWO TRANSFORMATIONAL-GENERATIVE APPROACHES TO TEACHING SYNTAX IN JUNIOR AND SENIOR HIGH SCHOOLS ARE PRESENTED. ONE IS FOR USE WITH AVERAGE AND TALENTED STUDENTS IN GRADES 7-9, AND THE OTHER IS FOR SLOW-LEARNING STUDENTS IN GRADES 7-11. A DISCUSSION OF THE FIRST APPROACH IS DIVIDED BY GRADE LEVEL AND INCLUDES AN EXAMINATION OF BASIC SENTENCE…

Three papers from this issue of the Working Papers are provided here. "The Nesting Constraint in Child Language," by Patrick Alan Brogan, discusses a child's ability to perform complex, internally embedded sentences. It is hypothesized that difficulty stems from a child's limited short-term memory. "A Framework for Studying Kin Term…

Developmental trends in the effects of expectations regarding agent/action matches on judgments of sentence acceptability were investigated. Five sentences reflected expected relations ("harmonious") and five contradicted them ("contrary"). Twelve subjects each were in grades 4 through 8 during year 1; the same 60 subjects…