Details findings indicating that most early linguistic competence is item based. Maintains that language development proceeds without evidence of system-wide syntactic categories, schemas, or parameters. Suggests that findings are not easily explained by the development of children's skills of linguistic performance, pragmatics, or other external…

Noam Chomsky's theory of grammar, or more specifically his theory of syntax, proposes to describe all possible English sentences through an explanation of how the native speaker generates sentences. It is the study of one's competence that offers insights into how language is acquired and how the rules and generalizations of that language are…

Discusses the difficulties English speakers experience in using correctly the various tenses of the past in French, focusing particularly on the imperfect tense. Proposes a series of exercises based on contrastive analysis that gradually lead the learner to restructure his intuitive grammar. (MES)

Relates the central ideas of Wilhelm Vietor to their historical context, since he was the dominant figure of his time, in the history of applied linguistics. Author shows how Vietor's reforms of foreign language teaching found acceptance in subsequent language teaching, particularly in Germany. (SL)

Two aspects of the problem of native language grammar instruction, in this case English, are addressed. First, it is argued that a combination of linguistic and pedagogical factors contribute to the explanation for the apparent decline in English grammar instruction in the schools. Secondly, it is argued that effective grammar teaching should…

Examines the innate faculties that underlie linguistic competence, especially syntactic competence, and proposes a theory of these faculties which accounts for the complexities of language and the evolution of human language. (AM)