Discusses trends and developments in generative phonology; metatheory and evidence in phonology; and segments, features, and marking. (RL)

Two experiments showed that functional completeness--the explicit propositional surface realization of deep-structure clause relations--isolated effective and integral comprehension units, which definitions of comprehension units couched in levels of syntactic structure failed to do. (Author/RL)

Reports a study investigating surface structure complexity, transformational sentence type, and sentence length as variables in a sentence imitation task with preschool children. (TO)

The results of study examining several indices of language use of normal and retarded children show the greatest difference between groups in sentence complexity and diversity. (TO)

Examines the effects of short term memory (STM) capacity, meaningfulness of stimuli, and age upon listeners' structuring of sentences. Results show that the interaction between STM capacity and meaningfulness (1) approached significance when data were collapsed over both age levels, and (2) was significant for one age level. Tables and references.…

Suggests that cumulative dynamic analysis of the semantic structure of the incoming message is subconsciously performed by interpreters. (Author/RL)

Shows how subjects' varying levels of academic achievement influenced their judgments of the grammatical acceptability of simple sentences, suggesting that differing levels of deep structure accompany differing levels of education. (RL)

Investigates the availability of surface representations for the interpretation of verb-phrase ellipsis. Results show that an elliptical verb phrase is most easily interpreted if its antecedent is in the immediately preceding sentence and that this can not be explained in terms of the unnaturalness of the passages with distant antecedents. (MM)

Reports part of a continuing project to develop a theory of children's first-language acquisition using computer modeling techniques. Notes the correspondence of structures formed by the computer program with recognized structures in English. Discusses anomalies in the program's performance. (RL)