Forty eight undergraduates were assigned to two groups of 24 subjects each. The high association (HA) group was given booklets that contained a series of nouns associatively related according to free association norms, one pair to a page; the low association (LA) group was given booklets containing pairs of associatively unrelated nouns. The…

Presents a functional description of punctuation as a delimiter of words, sentences, and paragraphs, and as a semantic and extralinguistic indicator. (AM)

A defense of the passive voice against charges that it is wordy, obscure, and ineffective. (DD)

Analyzes the distribution of information in so-called "synonymous" sentences in the context of a semantic perspective. (AM)

Describes how two conversants can jointly produce a single syntactic unit, such as a sentence, discussing the types of sentences achieved through joint production, the single utterance construction format, syntax for conversation, interactionally relevant features of talk, and the resources needed to complete an utterance-in-progress. (37…

Shows how the subject pronoun in a cleft sentence together with the cleft clause function pragmatically as a discontinuous definite description. Presents a new syntactic analysis of clefts, which treats the cleft clause as an extraposed complement of the cleft subject pronoun, adjoined to the clefted constituent. (Author/VWL)

Although several theories of online syntactic processing assume the parallel activation of multiple syntactic representations, evidence supporting simultaneous activation has been inconclusive. Here, the continuous and non-ballistic properties of computer mouse movements are exploited, by recording their streaming x, y coordinates to procure…

Explores the systematic arrangement of elements in American Sign Language and compares it with English syntax. (KM)

It is suggested that invited inference is a case of valid inference by saying that English "if...then" sentences are logically ambigous. The ambiguity of "if...then" sentences may be related syntactically or semantically to "or.""Or,""if...then," and "and" all invite inferences. (SC)

Three broad categories of comprehension skills (sentence, anaphora, and intersentence syntax) were divided into a total of 55 separate skills. Two different sentences or sentence pairs were written to incorporate each of the structures studied, and a four- or five-sentence paragraph was then written to incorporate each of these. Four question…

Discusses the issue of the use of the Spanish subjunctive in clauses that express neither doubt nor emotion, but appear to deal with strictly factual material. Such uses of the subjunctive are accommodated within the generally accepted one- or two-subjunctive models. (EJS)

Presents a preliminary study on the analysis of cleft sentences in Chinese, defining the cleft sentence in Chinese, clarifying its relationship to equation sentences, and discussing two alternative analyses. (Author/AM)

Discusses the applicability of "fuzzy sets" to explicating the notion of "vagueness." (Author/HP)