Discusses recent analyses of the adjective in Italian and stresses the importance of the position of the Italian adjective for second language learners of Italian and for Italians learning foreign languages. (CFM)

Argues that in an unmarked sentence the verbs will be stressed, and that in determining patterns of sentence stress the vital consideration should be the speaker's point of view. (AM)

The aim of this article is to show the interaction between syntax and semantics. A question-answer environment, where the answer is composed of an adverbial, is used to demonstrate the interaction. (Text is in French.) (TL)

This paper reports an investigation into the acquisition of indirect object constructions by English children aged 5-10. Sentences having a prepositional "to" phrase containing the indirect object, and following the direct object, were acquired before sentences where the indirect object preceded the direct object. (CHK)

Examined whether the preferences of verbs for appearing in particular subcategory structures can influence parsing and whether this influence is graded according to the strength of the preferences. Findings suggest that the verb subcategory preferences do produce a graded influence on the parse, according to their strength. (28 references)…

Explores the prospects for a "general nativist" theory of first- and second-language acquisition (SLA), outlines a modular acquisition device not including Universal Grammar, and considers the role of universal grammar in the emergence of a first language (L1). (50 references) (Author/CK)

This paper describes various aspects of syntactic theory, including lexical, functional, and phrasal categories and how they are put together in clauses and sentences, how words are represented in the mental lexicon, and how noun phrases are assigned structural and semantic information. Language acquisition and the treatment of language disorders…

Examines imperatives regarding their different construction forms as well as the syntactic and pragmatic features of the imperative stem that influence the form and meaning of the tag attached to it. The conclusion is drawn that the imperative tag cannot be best analyzed as merely a frozen expression. (GLR)

Discusses the automatic construction of abstracts from the texts of documents. Automatic sentence extraction is examined, including syntactic criteria and semantic relational criteria; textual cohesion is discussed, including the recognition of anaphors and noun phrases; text structure is addressed; and the concept of abstract-frames is described.…

Recent investigations of filler-gap dependencies in sentence processing have assumed that the parser must compute an antecedent-trace relationship in which the trace site is identical to the canonical position of the moved phrase. Pickering and Barry's challenge to this view is refuted and a "direct association hypothesis" is suggested.…

Pickering and Barry's recent argument against the existence of empty categories (ECs) in human sentence processing is disputed. It is argued here that ECs may still play a linking role between thematic role assigners and wh-phrases. One possible parsing algorithm is given that accounts for Pickering and Barry's data. (28 references) (Author/LB)

Papers by Gorrell and by Gibson and Hickok question Pickering and Barry's (PB) arguments against empty categories in sentence processing. This reply disputes Gorrell's claims that PB's interpretation of the data is inadequate and, in agreement with Gibson and Hickok, reinforces the arguments that the gap location is irrelevant to the formation of…

Throughout "Coriolanus", the third person "shall" appears primarily as a modal auxiliary: combined with another verb, it indicates the speaker's mood or attitude toward the person or thing that (s)he speaks about. This essay looks at one of the tribunes' use of "shall" in the third person and how it reveals the…

An analysis of Kilega, a Bantu language spoken in eastern Zaire, focuses on the relative positions of subject and verb and agreement patterns, with particular attention to WH-movement. It is found that Kilega is a subject-verb-object language, but exhibits some variant patterns. WH-movement triggers verb-subject inversion and shifts agreement. The…

Clitics are explained through the interplay of different levels of language in performance. It is shown that clitic movement can be blocked on phonological ground, and accusative marked by "shwa" follows, rather than precedes, a clitic segment containing a back vowel--"vous le" or "nous le". (SCC)