Recent analyses of Russian (Halle 1963, Lightner 1972) have been forced by the criteria of rule "naturalness" and rule "generality" to posit highly abstract underlying forms. These underlying forms and rules are claimed to represent the speaker's competence. Such analyses are now being criticized (Derwing 1973, Hooper 1974) on the following…

The author outlines the construction of a somewhat different machine than that envisioned by Turing (with which it would be possible to converse, presumably by telephone or telegraph, and which would be capable of masquerading as a human being). The machine envisaged by the author would be capable of doing comprehension exercises. Such a machine…

The discussion throughout this paper is devoted to answering the question: What is the nature of our knowledge of language and what theoretical assumptions does the answer entail for linguistic description? Discussed are--(1) what it means to know a language, (2) the distinction between linguistic competence and performance, (3) justification of…

This paper reports on a study conducted to determine the abilities of children to make optional transformations in sentences conjoined with "and." The subjects were 35 middle-class children between the ages of five and eight, who demonstrated average school achievement, spoke standard American English, and had normal speech and hearing. A…

This book is a transformational generative discussion of American English designed for use at the undergraduate as well as the graduate level. Chapter 1 deals with the definition of language and questions of dialect and standard language. Chapter 2, "The Nature of Linguistic Data," considers the speaker's knowledge of his language and the…

The justification for the Chomsky-Halle Auxiliary Reduction Rule III, called Pretonic Stress Placement (PSP), is questioned from the point of view of the native speaker. The similarity of the PSP and the Main Stress Rule (MSR) is examined through the application of these rules to polysyllabic monomorphemic and polymorphemic words. This analysis is…

Argues that transformational grammar supplies an adequate theoretical model with explanatory power; all that is needed is that the language teacher take a long, hard look at transformational theory. (VM)

This research is based on the assumption that a Spanish/English bilingual is aware of the phonological and semantic relatedness of the many hundreds of pairs of transparently cognate items in the two languages. This awareness is linguistically significant in that it is reflected in the internalized grammar of the bilingual. The bilingual speaker…

This paper considers the way in which a grammar must account for the speaker's knowledge of sentence force as opposed to sentence form or meaning and the way in which this force is related to a sentence. According to the performative analysis approach, the force of each sentence should be stated explicitly as a part of the underlying…

This dissertation seeks to provide an improved syntactic analysis of the phenomena known as "island constraints" and to offer a natural explanation for these and other phenomena in behavioral terms. The author approaches the problem using the notions of "nucleus" and "satellite," and shows that these concepts are a necessary part of a…

On the basis of the grammatical theory developed by Noam Chomsky, it is reasonable to presume that the different parts of a sentence may not all be understood with equal facility and speed. One purpose of this study was to determine whether some of the grammatical relations within a sentence were understood more readily than others. Sentences of…

There is a difference between learning a second language and learning a second dialect; the English as a second language (ESL) program should be limited to teaching English to students who do not already know English. Although there are not enough ESL programs, there is also a problem that some students are receiving ESL instruction even though…

The chapters in this volume represent a type of current psycholinguistic research that focuses both on the nature of human information processing and the coding of linguistic structure. The chapters and authors are as follows: (1) "The Wherefores and Therefores of the Competence-Performance Distinction," by V. Valian; (2) "Levels of Processing and…

This paper attempts to discuss some of the implications of transformational grammar for language analysis and language learning. The author covers the following points: (1) transformational grammar--some background and some claims, and some linguistic and psychological implications; (2) which, if any, of the claims of transformational grammar are…