This dissertation is a typological study of verb-final languages, the purpose of which is to examine various grammatical phenomena in verb-final languages to discover whether there are correlations between the final position of the verb and other aspects of grammar. It examines how finality of the verb interacts with argument coding in simple…

Presents a structural definition of the basic sentence unit, and suggests some guidelines for teaching this material. This concept of "X-word Grammar" has proven to be very helpful to students encountering difficulty with the concept of a sentence. (SL)

The research demonstrated that there are differences in the processing of sentences containing anaphoric pronouns (e.g., "After Mark arrived, he used the phone.") and cataphoric pronouns (e.g., "After he arrived, Mark used the phone."). Reading time was measured on sentences containing 2 clauses; a pronoun appeared in 1 clause, and a proper name…

Four experiments were conducted on the interrelationship between semantic and syntactic structures. The former were specified by the method of restricted associations, and the latter by traditional grammatical analysis. In all experiments subjects were required to generate sentences from sets of given words. The generated sentences were studied as…

This installment of the series on the passive considers the subject and the object of the verb under the following headings: part of speech, circumstantial objects and the relationship between clauses and sentences. (Text is in French.) (AMH)

A summary of problems in the study of structural complexity. Within the framework of a "morphology of utterances," the following topics are addressed: the criteria of intuition and common sense; the relationship of complexity of language and thought; and the possibility of a purely linguistic measure of complexity. (Text is in French.) (AMH)

Three experiments investigated whether speakers use constituent ordering as a mechanism for avoiding ambiguities. In utterances like ''Jane showed the letter to Mary to her mother,'' alternate orders would avoid the temporary PP-attachment ambiguity (''Jane showed her mother the letter to Mary,'' or ''Jane showed to her mother the letter to…

A comparison of the syntactic characteristics of mathematical equations and Eskimo syntax is made, and a proposal that Eskimo has a level of structure similar to that of equations is described. P:t performative contrast is reanalyzed. Questions and speculations on the formal treatment of this type of structure in transformational grammar, and its…

The problem of determining the nature of this special form-class is seen in historical, linguistic perspective. A syntactic definition of predicatives as a word class with five types of morphological variation is included. The establishment of a word class or subclass on such a syntactic basis is suggested. (RL)

A discussion of a semantic approach to teaching these particles. The meaning of -zhe can be best characterized as "incompleteness.' Another characteristic of -zhe in a simple sentence is to change an action verb into a stative one. -Ne in conjunction with -zhe mitigates the incompleteness represented by -zhe. (Author/AMH)

This paper describes a system for the computer understanding of English. The system answers questions, executes commands, and accepts information in normal English dialogue. It uses semantic information and context to understand discourse and to disambiguate sentences. It combines a complete syntactic analysis of each sentence with a heuristic…

Designed to investigate the types of responses given to a sentence completion task when constraint elements of word order, word form, redundancy, distance between lexical items, and the interaction among these elements are considered, this instrument consists of 34 sentences, half of which are high associative sentences, while the other half are…

Tested was the hypothesis that a sequential, linguistically-oriented program of instruction in written sentence structure and in the relationships between written and oral sentences will produce significantly greater achievement in sentence construction than the traditional English program. Nine classrooms of students (grades 3-5) participated in…