This paper discusses a study designed to evaluate the use of semantic and syntactic expectations in reading. Sixteen college-student subjects, measured for reading proficiency by the Nelson-Denny Reading Test, were divided equally into a fast-reading group (350-450 words per minute) and an average-speed reading group (200-275 words per minute).…

French became the foremost medium of communication in Europe in the 18th century. In Germany the most widely used French textbook was Johan Valentin Meidinger's "Practische Franzoesische Grammatik." This textbook was apparently a huge success from the pedagogical and the commerical points of view. With a few minor revisions, it would…

The eight papers in this issue are addressed to issues in pragmatics, semantics, syntax, discourse analysis, morphology, and particularly to issues touching on two or more of these areas at once. The final paper touches on phonology as well. The papers are: "The Myth of Semantic Presupposition," by Steven Boer and William Lycan; "A…

The prenominal relative modifer construction (PREM) in German, while not a compulsory grammatical feature of the language, is a stylistic means of expression which native speakers use readily in non-casual speech and writing. Teaching the active use of this construction at the intermediate level of German study may be an effective means of helping…

This paper investigates the second language acquisition of interrogative-word questions in English. It is shown that the data from some bilingual English speakers at Pan American University are comparable to the data noted by others for both second and first language acquisition of interrogative word questions. In particular, interrogative-word…

This paper focuses on those aspects of which teachers must be aware when teaching university students in Hong Kong. These aspects include cultural factors, the influence of political, social, and educational developments in Hong Kong over the years, and the students' feelings of achievement in attending the university. In terms of language,…

This book addresses child's language learning in a manner designed to be understandable to the nonspecialist. The major areas covered are: (1) learning one's first language; (2) the role of adults in the child's language learning; (3) discovering the structure of language: phonology; (4) discovering the structure of language: syntax; (5) learning…

Two major strategies for linguistically encoding an idea or proposition are suggested. The first strategy involves encoding an idea in the space of a single utterance, while the second strategy conveys the proposition through a sequence of two or more utterances. The tendency has been to focus on discourse as a composite of sentences (the first…

The acquisition of rules for formulating causative verbs was studied with children over a period of a few years. Most of the data is based on the spontaneous speech of the author's two daughters, from age 2;6 to 6;2 and from age 2;4 to 3;11. It was hypothesized that there are at least two prerequisites for the child's formulation of a general rule…

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…

The oral reading miscue patterns of 26 normal students in grades one, two, and three were compared with those of 26 educable mentally retarded students from primary, intermediate, and junior high school classes. Intelligence quotients ranged from 94 to 137 for the normal students and from 50 to 80 for the retarded students. During the testing…

A progress report is presented of a study which applies a system of generative grammar to error analysis. The objective of the study was to reconstruct the grammar of students' interlanguage, using a systematic analysis of errors. (Interlanguage refers to the linguistic competence of a student who possesses a relatively systematic body of rules,…

A study was conducted of the Baie Sainte-Marie Acadian dialect, a particular form of the French language derived from the French spoken in France during the 16th and 17th centuries. The purpose of this study was to analyze and explain a certain number of morphosyntactic deviations from standard French, from both a synchronic and a diachronic…

MATERIALS FOR THE NEBRASKA ELEMENTARY ENGLISH CURRICULUM INCLUDE AN ANCILLARY POETRY MANUAL FOR GRADES ONE THROUGH SIX. ATTENTION IS GIVEN TO INCREASING THE CHILD'S PLEASURE IN POETRY, BROADENING HIS KNOWLEDGE OF POETRY, AND HELPING HIM TO EXPRESS HIMSELF MORE CREATIVELY. CHILDREN ARE ENCOURAGED FIRST TO ENJOY THE READING OF POEMS AND THEN TO…

Contrastive analysis is suggested as a tool in language teaching for such areas as: (1) deciding how much to focus on different aspects of the target language; (2) making generalizations about its structure; and (3) explaining texts or constructions which might otherwise be incomprehensible. The claim is made that such procedures need to be based…