An analysis of indirect object passives in English and their development from Late Old English and Early Middle English suggests that their existence is related to the development of double object constructions. As long as the dative and accusative cases had not merged, neither pronominal nor nominal indirect objects required a preposition;…

This study reports the use of automated textual analysis on a French novel. An introductory section chronicles the history of artificial intelligence, focusing on its use with natural languages, and discusses its application to textual syntax. The first chapter examines computational linguistics in greater detail, looking at its relationship to…

Some of the problems inherent in a word-based hypothesis asserting that the word/stem is taken as the minimal sign not only for syntax but also for morphology are examined in an analysis of a polysynthetic language, Koyukon, an Athabaskan language of Alaska. Data from the Central dialect is considered in the analysis. A brief sketch of the verbal…

Grammatical theories that rely exclusively on the categorical nature of constituents to determine their syntactic behavior encounter problems when dealing with cleft construction. The ungrammaticality of such constructions is indeed syntactic in nature and can be shown to derive from a general principle of universal grammar (UG), restricting the…

A self-instructional program in the French subjunctive mood is organized by categories of verbs requiring the subjunctive. Within each category, directions are given for using the verbs, and exercises are prescribed with sample sentences. The exercises consist of pattern drills and translations. A post-test is included. (MSE)

A study of the semantic factors determining the choice of "go to" and "will" in some varieties of spoken English looks at intentionality and premeditation, imminence, observation, presence on the scene of action, certainty, inference and observation, knowledge and certainty, present relevance and immediacy of action, children's acquisition of…

Points of similarity and contrast between English and Modern Standard Arabic in relativization are examined. It is concluded that while the relativization process is essentially the same in both languages, they differ with respect to the relative pronoun, the agreement of the relative pronoun with its antecedent, and the appearance of the…

A study of one of the most recurrent and persistent obstacles in learning English as a second language, the use of tense marking, is presented. The analysis is based on audio recordings from a Vietnamese community in Northern Virginia, representing four age ranges from 10 to 55 years, two lengths of U.S. residency (1-3 years and 4-7 years), and…

The uses of the present progressive tense in informal English spoken discourse are examined, focusing on the increasing frequency of the so-called stative or non-action verbs found in the progressive aspect. Generalizations are proposed to account for: (1) the discrepancy between grammar book explanations and actual usage, and (2) the meaning of…

A lexical comparison of four native speakers' spontaneous discourse in the Acadian French spoken in a southern Nova Scotia village with standard spoken French is described. This study is part of a larger study of four regional variations on Nova Scotia Acadian French and has as its objectives both linguistic analysis and improvement of standard…

A study of children's egocentrism in their use of person and case examined whether 7-year-olds would tend to cast themselves as subjects in sentences using the verbs "give, show, say, tell, and lend," and what role they might assign the hearer. In 85 utterances, the children (N=17), with an average age of 7.8 years, showed the expected…

It has been assumed that combining living in a native speech community with formal classroom instruction creates an ideal learning environment for foreign language learners. This study examines the extent to which formal instruction affects the oral discourse of advanced learners in target-language speaking environments. From a discourse…

The primary goal of the present study is an exposition of the structure of Mam, a Mayan language of the Mamean group. Mam is the most widely spoken of the four Mamean languages, and has been roughly estimated to have a quarter million speakers located in the departments of Huehuetenango and San Marcos in Guatemala and in the state of Chiapas in…

Five experiments are carried out to determine the comprehension of passives by children. Results obtained demonstrate that comprehension rests on knowledge of syntactic structure. V - NP were interpreted as verb-object. Passives lacking a preposition were interpreted as actives. Competence in passives may be at a high level before performance is…