This paper offers a functional explanation for the existence and for the special properties of movement rules in natural languages. The hypothesis is advanced that raising, lowering, and fronting rules all serve the function of increasing the prominence of objective content in surface structure. (CK)

The eight papers in this issue are addressed to issues in pragmatics, semantics, syntax, discourse analysis, morphology, and particularly to issues touching on two or more of these areas at once. The final paper touches on phonology as well. The papers are: "The Myth of Semantic Presupposition," by Steven Boer and William Lycan; "A…

Articles represent four schools of thought in the field of linguistics: structural, behavioral, transformational, and tagmemic. Summarizing structural linguistics before 1956, John Lotz emphasizes the importance of spoken language and the "internal order" imposed upon "physical and behavioral phenomena," and indicates some of the basic beliefs of…

This paper attempts to give a unified view of the workings of noun clauses. These are considered according to three main types corresponding to three different kinds of source sentences. All three types can be used in any usual noun-phrase function, especially subject, direct object, and prepositional object. Four factors which complicate the…

This paper is concerned with the syntactic problems raised by the grammatical phenomenon in Japanese that is called here the "complementizer." In the types of sentences under consideration here, S2 is a nominal clause. Such a clause acts as a noun phrase adjunct to the verb in S1. The noun clauses in question are often followed by a…

TWO MODELS OF DESCRIPTION, GENERATIVE AND NONGENERATIVE, ARE APPLIED TO THE PHONOLOGY OF ITALIAN TO DETERMINE WHICH OF THE TWO OFFERS A SIMPLER YET MORE COMPREHENSIVE STATEMENT. THE NONGENERATIVE MODEL IS GIVEN IN A LISTING OF PHONEMES AND A BRIEF STATEMENT OF THE PHONOTACTICS AND ALLOPHONICS. THE GENERATIVE MODEL STATES THE FACTS IN 11 REWRITE…

This is a study of linguistic variability among social levels in West Germany and of the problems associated with doing such an analysis. The data, ordered according to sex and social levels, were collected from young children retelling narratives heard on tapes. The report represents a comprehensive study of the children's syntactic performance…

This dissertation is an attempt to characterize the notion "exception to a rule of grammar" within the context of Chomsky's conception of grammar as given in "Aspects of the Theory of Syntax." This notion depends on a prior notion of "rule government"--in each phrase marker on which a transformational rule may…

This report contains an extensive discussion of an approach to the study of discourse. Initial remarks concern arguments for studying discourse and approaches for discourse study that have been used; the author then discusses the relationship of discourse analysis and generative semantics. Language is considered on two issues: the decisions that a…

It is proposed that syntactic processes (rules and constraints) may have a semantic basis. Evidence is presented that the constraint against backward pronominalization with indefinite antecedents derives from the semantic properties of various classes of definite noun phrases. (CK)

A set of five noun features proposed by Chomsky for characterizing the selectional restriction of English verbs are examined. Examples are presented to show how the "small" set of features is both "too broad" and "too narrow" at once. (SW)

Article to be continued. (DS)

Research supported by a grant from the Rome Air Development Center. (DS)

THIS PAPER PROPOSES SOME INSIGHTS INTO THE PROBLEMS FACED BY SOMEONE ABOUT TO EMBARK ON A GENERATIVE GRAMMAR OF AZERBAIJANI. IT IS NOT A SYSTEMATIC ANALYSIS, BUT A SAMPLING OF IDEAS PERTINENT TO SUCH AN ANALYSIS. THE PROBLEMS DEALT WITH ARE (1) GRAMMATICAL DEPTH IN AZERBAIJANI BASED ON VICTOR YNGVE'S DEFINITION OF "DEPTH"--A NUMBER OF SENTENCES OF…