This study examines heritage speakers' knowledge of Standard Arabic (SA) and compares their patterns of SA acquisition to those of learners of SA as second/foreign language (L2). In addition, the study examines the influence of previously acquired language varieties, including Colloquial Arabic (QA), on SA acquisition. To this end, the study…

Two explanations for the role of "se" in such constructions as "Se construyen casas" are given by grammarians; one states that it is a passive interpretation ("Houses are built"), the other advocates an impersonal interpretation ("One builds houses"). Different views are presented and analyzed. (Author/NCR)

Earlier sociolinguistic studies distinguish between Standard English and Black English with respect to indirect question formation. Standard English typically does not invert the tense-marker "do" in the imbedded question ("Ask John if he played basketball today") while Black English does ("Ask John did he play basketball today"). In fact, the…

Discusses dislocation, a construction in which one element, usually a noun, is isolated either at the beginning or at the end of a sentence while being represented in the body of the sentence by a pronoun. Discusses the place of dislocation in linguistic studies and its pedagogical implications. (SED)

The aim of this study is to supply the Russian language teacher with information about the patterns most frequently and consistently occurring in common speech. It begins with a discussion of normative grammar and linguistic reality, colloquial language, the sentence, sentence length, short expressions, and generative grammar. Sentences used in…

This paper examines the claim that German-language syntax is undergoing a process of restructuring that will eliminate verb final position in sentences, resulting in a very English-style linear sentence structure. One particular structure is examined in interviews with 30 adults and 10 children: the finite verb in subordinate clauses that is…

The syntactical speech characteristics of black children living in depressed areas of an Eastern city were compared with the eight identified by Baratz, i.e., absence of "s" in the third person singular, zero copula, double negation and "ain't," zero past marker, zero possessive marker, zero plural marker, the substitution of "did" or "can" for…

The inventory presented here was produced by listing 13 sentence elements (subject, object, etc.) with specifications as to mutual exclusiveness and then presenting them to a computer with a request for permutations. Those items for which no examples could be found were excluded from the output, and the remaining patterns constitute the inventory…

Right dislocations are expressions of the following form: (1) "They told the Grand Jury a number of lies, the Nixon men." (2) "We find we have to limit our social schedule, my husband and I." (3) "Mary always wears a frown, the ugly witch." They are found also almost exclusively in the spoken language. This paper…

This study addressed the following three questions: Among the grammatical patterns that first graders are expected to be able to read, are there any which are particularly easy or particularly difficult to interpret? Can these grammatical patterns be mastered with equal ease by students of varying reading ability? Do these grammatical patterns…

This study examines the usage of preposition "pour" in the written and spoken French of two groups of Grade 9 and 12 Franco-Ontarian bilingual students from Welland and from the Sudbury area. Both the students' written and spoken French are shown to include a substantial proportion of constructions with "pour" which deviate…

Despite similarities between Hindi and Urdu and mutual intelligibility, at least on the spoken level, slight grammatical differences between the two languages do exist. The treatment of gender provides an example of such differences. Explanation of the actual differences in gender usage can be based on a synchronic, linguistic level as well as on…