This paper makes observations on verb classification which are considered relevant to the understanding of Swahili syntax. Three different syntactically relevant approaches are discussed: (1) establishing a set of "basic sentence types" and then classifying verbs according to their occurrence or non-occurrence in sentences of these…

It is asserted that the treatment of intonation within the framework of generative grammar has not shown whether surface syntactic structure is sufficient for formulation of phonological rules. An attempt is made to demonstrate that within English phonology reference to deep structure is necessary. (Available from: See FL 508 214). (RM)

Seeks to formulate a definition of imperativity based on extralinguistic rather than formal notions. (TL)

Four hypotheses concerning the linguistic structure of yes-no questions and their answers are considered as hypotheses relating to the abstract structure of yes-no questions and to this abstract structure in all human languages. The universal base hypotheses are the following: (1) The abstract representation of all yes-no questions includes two…

Treats the general linguistic aspect of Fillmore's theories. (RM)

A critical review of the development of case theory as put forth by N. Chomsky, C. J. Fillmore, J. M. Anderson, J. J. Robinson, and S. Starosta. (Text is in French.) (AM)

An analytic sketch of motion/location in more primitive spatio-temporal terms is presented. The earlier account (ED 096 825), showing various languages' most characteristic pattern for deriving a putatively-universal underlying representation of motion and location, is continued. The English pattern is characterized further (amplified by data from…

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the process of coordination reduction in various languages and to propose a universal set of rules that will account for all types of coordination reduction. In a brief discussion of some of the more recent proposals on coordination reduction it will be shown that these proposals fail to account for the…

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how languages express contrastive emphasis. It is argued that all contrastively emphasized constructions have underlying cleft sentences, independent of whether the surface structure is an equational or a nonequational one. It is furthermore argued that emphatic word orders are systematic and predictable…

Revised version of a paper supported by a National Science Foundation graduate fellowship. The universal base hypothesis states that all natural languages utilize the same base component in their transformational grammars. (DD)

This book offers a theory of language which departs from both structuralist and Chomskyan transformational linguistics in using semantic structure as its base. The theory is illustrated mostly from English by means of a step-by-step analysis of a large part of English semantic structure. A specific and detailed theory of language is thus…

This essay discusses a theory of grammar which incorporated Chomsky's distinction between deep and surface structure and accepts Fillmore's proposal to exclude such subject and concepts as direct object from the base structure. While recognizing the need for specifying an underlying set of caselike relations, it is proposed that this need can best…