Discusses the falsehood of the standardly expressed rule of English that an attributive noun is singular, unless no singular exists. Modern English admits both singular and plural attributive count nouns; the selection of number of the attributive noun depends on the sense to be conveyed. This proof suggests that constructions of the (attributive…

The general use of adversative conjunction in (primarily) English and U.S. poetry is outlined. The contention is that the adversative is not merely a grammatical convenience but sometimes a highly functional tool of rhetorical strategy. (36 references) (LB)

Argues that the mismatches that often exist between a word's morphological structure and its semantics can be resolved by a model-based theory in which morphological rules are formulated as operations on morphological expression, in which formal relationships exist between the model root, and the words in that example are defined by a set of model…

Examines the problem of teaching the gender of homophones in two categories: accidental and systematic. Learners whose experience shows that the gender of homophones has a creative function and is assigned systematically will be more sensitive to distinguishing the role of gender and less reluctant to learn gender when it is nonsystematic. (21…

The need for an ungendered singular form of the anaphoric pronoun in U.S. English is demonstrated, then an attempt is made to predict its phonological shape. Also discussed are current linguistic inclinations in this area, as well as obstacles to change in a grammatical category ordinarily unamenable to change. (35 References) (JL)

Discusses theoretical considerations of indexing as a part of information retrieval theory. Topics discussed include mentalist proposals; text representation and knowledge representation; rules of grammar and syntax; linguistic theory; philosophical theories of Wittgenstein regarding rules; retrieval practices; and the formation of rules in…

Offers a list of the grammatical problems and their solutions that crop up most frequently in the personal writings of the technical writer's office fellows. (SR)

Presents evidence for overt verb raising in Japanese, thereby defending the validity of the head parameter with its two values (head initial and head final). Explores consequences of the overt verb raising analysis of Japanese to various aspects of syntactic theory. (Author/VWL)

Responds to various commentaries written in response to an earlier article published by the author on filler syllables and their status in emerging grammar. (Author/VWL)

Maintains that deciding whether the first person pronoun is a referring expression requires clarity about the role of "I" and a detailed account of the notion of reference. It is concluded that "I" is a limiting case of reference, in which the possibility of referential failure and misidentification does not apply. (24…

This article is a reply to Kuno et al. 1999, which claims that a structural approach to scope should be replaced by an expert system. (Author/VWL)

Discusses issues important to the study of the typology of transitivity. Data from numerous languages are presented to show what parameters can contribute to the linguistic expression of transitive events typologically. (Author/VWL)

Most current models of language production assume that information about gender is selected only in phrasal contexts, and that the phonological form of a noun can be accessed without selecting its syntactic properties. In this paper, we report a series of picture-word interference experiments with Italian-speaking participants where the…

Explaining the persistent optional use of overt forms of certain grammatical properties in adult second language acquisition (SLA) raises the question of whether or not such difficulties are directly attributable to first language (L1) influence. Using Sperber and Wilson's Relevance Theoretic framework (1986/95), this paper considers how a…

In the paper, we examine whether and the extent to which CALL grammar instruction contributes to improving learners' performance and confidence in positioning adverbs in an English sentence. Over a two-week period two groups of ESL learners were exposed to six hours of grammar instruction. One group had teacher-fronted instruction while the other…