Uses personal experiences from "grammar" school to argue that the exercises used to develop practical skills, such as a knowledge of grammar, should be practical as well. Suggests that teachers need to convince students that what is being taught will be useful and important in later life. (RL)

The acquisition and use of locative prepositions by 30 Hebrew-speaking children aged two to three years was investigated in a cross-sectional study. Both the order of acquisition and the role of linguistic complexity in determining that order were examined. (Author/AM)

Describes the use of some determiners in French and shows how their syntactic and semantic roles are interrelated. (Text is in French.) (TL)

Investigates the pragmatic functions of topicalizing subject (S) and object (O) in Standard Arabic and attempts to find a functional explanation for the occasional preposing/topicalization of S and/or O over the verb (V) to yield a construction in the form of SVO order or any other order sanctioned by the rules of Arabic grammar. (22 references)…

The study investigated the ability of 60 children, age 6-8, to monitor grammaticality in the past progressive, perfect progressive, and perfect verb forms. Children achieved a significantly higher rate of accurate judgments monitoring grammatical forms than ungrammatical forms. Context surrounding ungrammatical verb forms and child's age…

In a survey, 130 English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students were asked to describe the meanings of English tenses in terms of time concepts used in ESL grammar texts. Results suggest that grammar teaching utilizing descriptions of time accepted in English-speaking communities to explain usages and meanings of English tenses can limit learner…

The production of regular and irregular past-tense forms was investigated among the members of an English-speaking family with a hereditary disorder of language. The possible reasons for this disorder are discussed, and some aspects of the disorder are characterized and explained. Results, in conjunction with findings from previous studies of past…

Examines the relationship between third-person-singular subject pronoun case and agreement, focusing on the hypothesis that these two grammatical subsystems develop together. Twenty-nine children between ages 2 and 4 years of age were each audiotaped for approximately two hours playing and interacting with their primary caregivers. (Author/VWL)

Investigates the effect of time and attention on formal accuracy in the linguistic performance of 36 adult language learners with regard to the third person singular verb "-s" and the plural from of nouns, using a story retelling task as its elicitation technique. Results suggest that the attention variable had a significant impact on grammatical…

Provides a general overview of two books--"The Second Time Around: Minimalism and Second Language Acquisition" and "Second Language Syntax: A Generative Introduction--and shows how the respond to key issues in second language acquisition, including the process of second language acquisition, access to universal grammar, the role of…

Investigates how different types of focus-on-form instruction affect second language learning of English grammatical structure, particularly present perfect. Results showed that subjects with both rule instruction and visual enhancement of input showed higher proficiency than other groups in the short term. (Author/VWL)

The objective of this investigation was to analyze rhetorical strategies of Alice Walker in four narratives, namely, "The Color Purple, In Search of Our Mother's Gardens, Possessing the Secret of Joy, and Now Is the Time To Open Your Heart". As such, this study helps to expand the body of investigation relating linguistics to literature and medium…