Background: Early intervention is recommended for pre-school children with low language. However, few robustly evaluated language interventions for young children exist. Furthermore, in many interventions the theoretical underpinnings are underspecified and the 'active ingredients' of the interventions not tested. This paper presents a…

It remains an open question whether second language (L2) learners can process linguistic properties at the syntax-discourse interface. This study examines this issue in the context of the L2 processing of Korean dative sentences under different information structure requirements. Given that discourse constraints associated with information…

Purpose: The current study used an intervention design to test the hypothesis that parent input sentences with diverse lexical noun phrase (NP) subjects would accelerate growth in children's sentence diversity. Method: Child growth in third person sentence diversity was modeled from 21-30 months (n = 38) in conversational language samples obtained…

Purpose: Prosodic cues are used to clarify sentence structure and meaning. Two studies, one of children with specific language impairment (SLI) and one of adults with a history of learning disabilities, were designed to determine whether individuals with poor language skills recognize prosodic cues on par with their normal-language peers. Method:…

This study investigates children's semantic integration of sentence information as a function of instructions (form or substance), test sentence form (verbatim or paraphrased from acquisition story sentences), and story content (spatial or general relationships). After 144 fifth-grade children were presented with twelve short acquisition stories,…

Presents an experimental approach to the linguistic analysis of discourse organization. (FL)

Developed as part of a high school quinmester unit on sentences, this guide provides the teacher with teaching strategies for a study of the acceptable patterns of kernel sentences and transformation, identification of rhetorical styles in prose and poetry, and the application of these principles to produce a variety of effective sentences. The…

This working paper presents a twelve-part paridigm for testing the level of concept attainment in language arts. Items were selected for three topics: words, words in sentences, and connected discourse. Within each topic concepts presented in the middle elementary grades were identified, and ten concepts were randomly selected for each topic. Each…

Research indicates that first (L1) and second language (L2) acquisition involve some of the same processes, yet L2 learners apparently acquire the structures of the target language in a systematic way by passing through a sequence of developmental stages. This study shows that in the earliest stages of syntactic development the L2 learner's…

The source of syntactic ambiguity and facts concerning the resolution of such ambiguity are discussed in this paper. The attitude of qenerative linguists towards ambiguity is examined, and a working distinction is drawn between vaqueness and ambiguity. The consequences of this distinction are then examined for syntactic ambiguity and an ordering…

This is an annotated bibliography intended to provide, for teachers of English, enough information about research and experimentation in sentence-combining to enable them to begin to use it as a pedagogical technique with some understanding of the theories and issues involved. The annotations are selective in that they summarize the information…

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…

Emphasizing the behavioral and social aspects of language as a foundation for instruction, 16 concepts for learning the structure of English in grades 7-9 are outlined in an attempt to set down in logical order the basic concepts involved in the understanding of the English language. The concepts begin with a recognition of the social purposes of…