Two widely used first-grade reading series, Ginn and Scott-Foresman, were analyzed in terms of six phrase-structure grammars in an attempt to discover frequencies for sentence types. The six grammars were noun phrase, verb phrase, verbal modifier, statements without verbs, interrogative, and statements with verbs. Categorial grammars were written…

A preliminary study of the syntactic characteristics of the imperative construction in modern Chinese is presented. The term "imperative" is used to refer to the type of syntactic construction which is marked by an implicit or explicit second person subject, and which expresses a direct command. Indirect or implied commands expressed by a…

A heuristic strategy model of sentence comprehension, similar to ones suggested by Bever, Fodor and Garret, is discussed, with the focus on the conceptual characteristics of such a model and on relevant research. Briefly, the model assumes that a speech perception device constructs a representation of a heard sentence corresponding roughly to a…

Recognition that students at Midwestern State University, Texas, lacked a basic level of linguistic skills prompted an inductive approach to the teaching of grammar, in which nonsense words were used to introduce concepts of English usage. Working in small groups, students arranged the nonsense words to form sentences which "sound[ed] like…

Presents a scheme for formulating correct sentences involving article and adjective endings, with specific suggestions for teaching noun phrases. Recommends also that the basic rules governing the choice of endings be taught, parallel with the students' progress. (IFS/WGA)

This article reviews and criticizes Fay's particular transformational descriptions as implausible. (Author/NCR)

An analysis of the causative verb construction in French as studied by Harris. Some questions raised are: Can a causative verb be considered an auxiliary? Which verbs can be causative? Might the notion of auxiliary include "auxiliary nouns"? Syntactic and lexical-semantic distinctions are made. (Text is in French.) (AMH)

A survey of linguistic history to demonstrate the linguistic basis of logical and mathematical formalism is presented. (HP)

Traces the historical changes of the verb "like" and shows how the verb's role in Modern English has a greater influence in syntax as opposed to semantics. This change in the verb's function has led to the formation of a new lexical subcategorization frame, or redefinition of the verb. (TR)

Compares the theories of Chomsky and Fillmore. By representing "case" as a feature of lexical items, the deep/surface distinction can be eliminated, and the resulting "lexicase" framework looks promising as a basis for the design of language teaching materials. (Author/RM)

This book is based on the premise that a writer is much like an artist who paints images, only using grammatical structures as tools. In conjunction with this approach, each chapter is divided into concepts and strategies: concepts illustrate how professional writers have applied image grammar to develop their art, and strategies provide…

This paper explores the syntactic and semantic character of previously undescribed sentence complements (SCs) in Emai, a Benue-Congo language of Nigeria's Edoid group. Data come from ongoing documentation incorporating oral narrative texts as well as dictionary and grammar descriptions. To delineate the grammatical properties of SCs, the paper…