The "meaning through syntax" framework proposes lexical, decompositional representations of verb meaning. For several classes of verbs, the proposed representations have successfully predicted 2 types of data that pattern differently: the syntactic structures of sentences that are naturally produced by speakers and writers and the comprehension…

Considering the popularity of the Internet, an automatic interactive feedback system for Elearning websites is becoming increasingly desirable. However, computers still have problems understanding natural languages, especially the Chinese language, firstly because the Chinese language has no space to segment lexical entries (its segmentation…

Preschool-age children were hypothesized to use one of two criteria, cue recognition or target generation, to make several linguistic judgments. When deciding whether a word is one they know, for example, some were expected to consider whether they recognized its sound form (cue recognition), whereas others were expected to consider whether a…

Any person who has taught Spanish as a second language or who has interacted with a non-native speaker of Spanish can easily tell that mastering the correct use of the copulas "ser" and "estar" is very difficult in both spoken and written production. But L2 learners are not alone. The Spanish copulas also present difficulty and frustration for L2…

In English and Chinese, questions with a "wh"-object and a universally quantified subject (e.g. "What did everyone buy?") allow an individual answer ("Everyone bought apples.") and a pair-list answer ("Sam bought apples, Jo bought bananas, Sally bought..."). By contrast, the pair-list answer is reportedly unavailable in Japanese and Korean. This…

Processing language requires the retrieval of concepts from memory in response to an ongoing stream of information. This retrieval is facilitated if one can infer the gist of a sentence, conversation, or document and use that gist to predict related concepts and disambiguate words. This article analyzes the abstract computational problem…

Through recording the streaming x- and y-coordinates of computer-mouse movements, we report evidence that visual context provides an immediate constraint on the resolution of syntactic ambiguity in the visual-world paradigm. This finding converges with previous eye-tracking results that support a constraint-based account of sentence processing, in…

Arguments and examples are given to show that there are neither syntactic nor semantic justifications for a separation of the Spanish subjunctive into two types. (KM)

A semantic inventory, an organized network of observations on the lexical structure of Huichol, is presented. Each entry includes a name form or lemma, its pronunciation if not clear from the lemma form, part of speech, and examples to illustrate its range of inflections. The discussion of semantics begins with a syntactic framework for the…

THIS DOCUMENT COMPRISES REPORTS ON TWO TECHNIQUES USED IN SIX EXPERIMENTS DESIGNED TO ASSESS THE SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC PROCESSING OF AUDITORY, LINGUISTIC INPUTS. PAST RESEARCH HAS DEVELOPED THE "PROBE-LATENCY TECHNIQUE," THE FIRST OF THE TWO TECHNIQUES USED IN THIS RESEARCH, FOR ASSESSING THE STRUCTURE OF LINGUISTIC INPUTS. RESULTS TO…

In many cases machine-translation does not produce satisfactory results within the framework of purely formal (morphological and syntaxic) analysis, particularly, in the case of syntaxic and lexical homonomy. An algorithm for syntaxic-semantic analysis is proposed, and its principles of operation are described. The syntaxico-semantic structure is…

Highlights the customary arbitrariness with which the terms "syntax" and "semantics," and hence "understanding" are applied, and leads to a more systematic application of these concepts. The question of why one notation (grammar, syntax) is more useful than another is raised, and an answer is suggested. (Author/VT)

Presents an example of an analysis of the modals "pouvoir" and "devoir" in view of their representation within the framework of semantic syntax. (Text is in French.) (CDSH/AM)

The study investigated 14 school-age deaf children's responses to a listener's indication of communication breakdown and examined whether responses were related to syntactic or semantic abilities and/or typical mode of communication. Most revisions involved changes in sentence constituents. The frequency of revisions, repetitions, and no responses…

The article discusses acquisition of five aspects of English beyond the basic simple sentence (inflections and modulations of meaning, negation, passive sentences, coordination, and relative clauses) and considers implications for hearing impaired students. Ways in which syntax interacts with pragmatic and semantic factors are analyzed. (CL)