Supplements Hans Basboll's state-of-the-art report on generative phonology (EJ 227 659), focusing on "abstract" v "concrete" approaches to surface data. Includes a summary of a discussion on phonology. (RL)

The study, which assessed the practicality of influencing the construal of grammatical relations by manipulation of a nonsyntactic variable, plausibility, indicated that the referential meaning of individual words can influence the construal of word combinations though the deaf need further training in the denotative and connotative meanings of…

This research investigated the possibility that there exists in Russian, as in other languages, a certain order of acquisition of grammatical morphemes that is relatively stable across individuals and which is immune to methods of instruction, textbooks, teachers, and other circumstances surrounding the learning of Russian. (Author)

Argues for the systematic development of language in high school, in response to an article published in the May 1979 issue of this journal. (Author/LD)

Reports on a study seeking to test French adult students' intuitive understanding of nuances in the structure "'etre' plus past participle" in their native language. (AM)

Demonstrates the role of punctuation in relation to the syntax, communicative value, and semantics of the French sentence. (AM)

Presents arguments, based on the evidence of anaphora, against lexical decomposition. (AM)

The semantic properties of a set of verb-particles in Mandarin are specified in the framework of movements of a theme. This approach regularizes the diverse meanings of these particles and enables one to relate spatial and temporal dimensions of activities. (CHK)

Analysis of the use of Gram.mat.ik IV grammar checker software in business communication classes found 114 errors the program did not identify in 67 student papers. Modifications of the software were recommended to increase its usefulness. (SK)

Asks pointed questions about English teachers' motives for teaching grammar and usage. Discusses what "usage" is; what "grammar" is; what "standard English" is; and what teachers of grammar and usage hope to accomplish by their teaching. Discusses the consequences of these realities for teachers. (RS)

Using data from Japanese, this article shows that the distinction between unergatives and unaccusatives is fully determined on the basis of the verb's inherent lexical meanings. (55 references) (Author/CK)

In morphological processing in adult speech, irregular forms are subject to several types of errors, including overgeneralization and overtensing. A morphonaming task found that probability of these errors is affected by a phonological factor that derives from vowel phoneme frequencies in a complex fashion: whether the vowel in the past tense form…

Examined the effects of syntactic (tense) violations occurring on regularly versus irregularly inflected verbs using event-related brain potentials (ERPs). Discusses implications of the results with respect to morphological parsing, the time course of syntactic feature analysis, and their consequent effects on temporal properties of ERP…

Focuses on Eckman's (1996) discussion of the nativism controversy. This article supplements Eckman's discussion and argues in favor of a generative approach to second language acquisition theory, specifically for an autonomous and modular grammatical theory. (five references) (CK)

Defends the idea that language is a unique, genetically underwritten "module of the mind" and considers consequences such a stance holds for the psycholinguistic study of nonnative language acquisition. Supports the position that language, as conceived within the tradition of generative grammar, is unlike other types of cognition and its basis is…