A brief overview is presented of previous theoretical treatments of the verb-preposition construction, concentrating on three Government Binding Theory treatments. Arguments are outlined that support a different analysis of this type of construction. (24 references) (Author/VWL)

Argues that the imperative construction in English can be given a fairly orthodox syntactic representation assuming current principles in Government Binding Theory. A number of reasons are provided for claiming that the imperative construction contains a case-marked subject. (23 references) (Author/VWL)

Studied whether two-year olds use multiple syntactic frames to help determine meanings of novel verbs. The multiple frames tested were combinations of transitive and intransitive frames in two alternation patterns. As predicted, the Causative pattern was more predictive of actions involving physical causation, and the Omitted Object pattern was…

Discusses whether "kategorija ostojanija" (category of state) should be considered as a part of speech in Russian, proposes a definition of the term "part of speech," and suggests that short adjectives and impersonal nonverbal predicatives be viewed as a single part of speech with personal and impersonal subtypes like Russian verbs. (21…

In their comments on the present authors' earlier article on beliefs about ordinary psychological activities, C. Fellbaum and G. A. Miller (1990) offer an explanation of the reciprocal effect of believing one activity is a kind of another, and that the second activity is part of the first. Points of disagreement are explained. (SLD)

Based on Hsieh's theory, this paper studies the historical aspect of verb copying in Chinese. Discussed are the theory of interaction, contemporary structure of a grammar, function and structure of verb copying, and analogy as both a type of interaction and a mechanism for creating various patterns of verb copying. (37 references) (LB)

Focuses on the revised system of grammar coding for verbs in the fourth edition of the "Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English" (OALD4), comparing it with two other similar dictionaries. It is shown that the OALD4 is found to be more favorable on many criteria than the other comparable dictionaries. (16 references) (VWL)

Investigates the distribution of existential polarity wh-phrases (EPWs) in Chinese that behave like negative polarity items, examining the distribution of Chinese EPWs and arguing that using EPWs is felicitous if the local propositions in which they appear do not entail existence of a referent satisfying the EPW description. The paper considers…

Explores categorization of verbs according to lexical aspectual meaning. Any type of categorization confronts a difficulty in suffixing "-teiru" to the verb "you-" because the "-teiru" suffixation actually yields a verb phrase to ambiguity. Suggests that the difficulty can be resolved by taking into account the…

Aims to find the extent to which subject clitic "nous" and 4th person verbs in French are used in a corpus of informal spoken language and to identify factors that may account for the productive use of nous +4p verb. (Author/VWL)

Proposes the term semantic phonology, which invites one to look at a sign--a word of a primary sign language--as a marriage of a noun and a verb. In semantic terminology, the sign is an agent-verb construction. (Author/VWL)

Examined how knowledge associated with verbs can be impaired by brain damage. A standardized battery of tests was administered to a group of brain damaged subjects. The goal was to investigate how patterns of associations and dissociations that emerged across tests could shed light on the functional architecture that underlies the meaning of verbs…

Traces the origin of the grammatical rule that strong verbs should distinguish between past tense and past participle forms. The rule, credited to Robert Lowth, did not in fact originate from Lowth nor did it reflect his usage as found in his private unpublished letters. (Author/VWL)

This article suggests evidence for and reasons why prior acquisition may either facilitate or inhibit acquisition of a new construction. It investigates acquisition of the German passive and future constructions which contain a lexical verb with either the auxiliary sein "to be" or werden "to become," and are related through these to potential…

In this paper we investigated the effects of configurational asymmetry in prefixed verbs in French. We used a simple lexical decision paradigm to compare prefixed verbs with external and internal prefixes as specified in linguistic theory (Di Sciullo, 1997) where external prefixes do not change the aktionsart and the verb argument structure of the…