This study reports findings from two truth value judgment experiments to address two research questions on Mandarin: (i) whether children and adults have the knowledge of the structural constraint Principle C in their pronoun resolution; and (ii) whether adults and children show the prohibition effect of the cyclic-c-command constraint or the QR…

This corpus study brings a second language (L2) research perspective, insights from generative grammar, and new empirical evidence to bear on a long-accepted claim in the World Englishes literature--namely, that inversion with "wh"-movement in colloquial Indian English is obligatory in embedded clauses and impossible in main clauses. It…

This manuscript reports on a corpus-based comparison of native and nonnative graduate students' language production in an asynchronous learning environment. Using 486 discussion board postings from a five-year period (2009-2013), we analyzed the extent to which native and nonnative university students' writing differed in 10 measures of syntactic…

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…

Secondary resultatives exist in Italian and English, where both languages exhibit freedom with PP resultatives but semantic restrictions with AP resultatives (strongly in Italian and weakly in English). This contrast between freedom and restrictions is mirrored in the fact that AP arguments in postobject position as sisters to V are marked in both…

"Bu" can negate noun phrases. This article attempts to determine what the parent structures are from which noun-bu-noun is derived, to describe the general property of N-bu-N, to examine the conditions under which N-bu-N is used, and to contrast it with other structures of similar usage. (Author/PJM)

The goal of the study was to compare the literacy challenges faced by children who speak nonstandard dialects of English and for whom Standard English is a "second dialect" with challenges faced by children for whom Standard English is a "second language." The study focused on the extent to which discourse patterns in the…

Describes rules for the use and interpretation of "verbally determinate ellipsis" involving the English verb group. Discussion covers: verbal determinacy and indeterminacy; verb group vs. verb phrase; the verb group as a five-part system; verb group echoing vs. auxiliary contrasting ellipsis; passive auxiliary; interpretation rules;…

A longitudinal analysis of the spontaneous speech (first-person pronouns and reflexives) of three children tests the claim that children's poor performance in binding and coreference is due to performance factors. Children appear to understand the principles of binding and coreference at the earliest stages of language development. (33 references)…

The extensive use of clausal embedding in legal language is examined. The extent and depth of left-branching, nested, and right- branching clauses in the 1972 British Road Traffic Act are also studied. The complexity of the resulting constructions, and the problems created for comprehension are described. The analysis reveals complex sequences of…

A discussion of constraints on ellipsis after auxiliaries in English focuses on a particular analytic problem concerning nonfinite verb phrases using "be", which has a historical dimension. A solution involving the morphological claim about the copula and its incorporation of tense-distinctions is proposed and discussed in the context of…

The results of studies of English adverb usage undertaken by Swedish university students participating in a research and writing skills program are summarized. The studies focus on the incidence of structural and semantic types of adjuncts used in two samples of spoken and written British English. Frequency distributions are charted and…

Fifty-five structures of the Chinese language are described and their particular usage patterns are discussed for the use of teachers, linguists, and advanced students of Chinese. Each structure is listed by its major structural element(s), its grammatical element(s), or a combination of the two. The examination of each structure consists of an…

Transferred epithets, adjectives that appear to have been transferred from adverb to prenominal position (e.g., "I balanced a thoughtful lump of sugar..."), have been viewed as unanalyzable both grammatically and from the viewpoint of transformational derivation. However, another explanation is that these combinations show patterns…