Grammatical description that relates structure to language use can help the EFL teacher in cases where different interpretations of experience are expressed in English and the students' native language by, for example, clauses that are structurally identical. (Author/RM)

Challenges the hypothesis that different linguistic codes are specifically related to different social groups, observing that children's language usage shows qualitative differences determined by the situations they face rather than by their sociocultural background. Supports this observation with an analysis of children's attempts to explain the…

Three experiments were conducted to ascertain the effect of contextual restraints on pronoun assignment. Pronoun selection is based on integration of the context even where it is already syntactically constrained. Integration occurs during and not following the assignment of the pronoun. (PMJ)

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

This paper examines the two markers of Mandarin Chinese, "-guo" and "-le," and focuses primarily on areas of difficulty that the non-native speaker may encounter due to confusion of these markers. (CHK)

A study of two year olds investigated the nature and development of children's early productivity with verb-argument structure and verb morphology. Results indicated that the children showed no signs of productive verb morphology, but they did use newly learned verbs in some creative ways involving nounlike uses and the appending of locatives.…

To test to what extent children are aware of the differences between closed-class and open-class words, 104 children aged 3 to 5 years participated in a sentence repetition task. Children were more likely to repeat sentences correctly when the nonsense words functioned in open-class rather than in closed-class contexts. (Contains 20 references.)…

Trade-off effects among linguistic components were compared in 30 elementary school children with deficits in both oral and written language, deficits only in written language, or normal language development. Analysis of syntax, phonology, and fluency indicated group effects, with trade-offs between some linguistic measures and positive…

In academic writing, non-native speakers tend to misuse the phrase "on the contrary", confusing it with "on the other hand". Sources of guidance to usage in English almost invariably describe it as a phrase of contrast or contradiction. This may apply to how the phrase is normally used in dialogue, but an analysis of the phrase as usually…