Advances the hypothesis that, when translating French personal constructions involving an adjective and a verb infinitive into English, the property of the English adjective determines whether the verb will be translated as an infinitive or as a gerund. Alternatives for handling such translations in machine translation systems are explored. (five…

Sixteen children, aged 7:8 to 9:10, learned 2 miniature languages differing in word order. Children found the Subject-Object-Verb language easier than the Verb-Subject-Object language; they also made more suffix errors and fewer word order errors in the Subject-Object-Verb language. (Author/DB)

The semantics and syntax of English comparative structures ("as...as") are re-examined. It is argued that traditional reference grammars have misrepresented comparisons as expressing a notion of equality, and an alternative analysis of the semantic relation between "-er than" and "as...as" is proposed. (Author/MSE)

The Spanish verb "haber" presents unresolved puzzles concerning its meaning and derivations. Apart from its familiar and recent function as auxiliary in the perfect tenses, the verb's underlying meaning "to have, to hold" persists in the impersonal "hay" while other morphemes previously associated with "haber" may prove unrelated. (Author/MSE)

This paper introduces the Government-Binding Theory of grammar and offers examples of the theory's use in areas of language development, child language disorders, and adult aphasia. Discussed are the levels of representation of Universal Grammar, subtheories that constrain the representations at each level, parameter setting, core grammar, and…

Examination of stories invented by four- and five-year olds indicated that narrative skill was a better predictor of the inclusion of conflict and psychological causation in a story than was age. Plotted narratives included conflict and psychological causation more often than did less-structured narratives. (BC)

This paper grounds a novel typology yielding three major types of English (L(eft)-extraction, defined by their relationship to resumptive pronouns (RPs): (1) B-extractions, which require RPs in their extraction sites, (2) A1-extractions, which allow RPs in their extraction sites, and (3) A2-extractions, which forbid RPs in their extraction sites.…

This paper discusses the biological and social views of grammar with reference to recent research on grammar and language acquisition, arguing that grammars are individual constructs existing in the minds of individual speakers. Contains 24 references. (MDM)

David Lightfoot's "How to Set Parameters: Arguments from Language Change" (1991), which adopts the principles and parameters approach developed by Chomsky as part of the theory of government and binding, is reviewed. (Contains 34 references.) (LB)

Three experiments compared the assignment of gender to masculine and feminine pictured objects as classified by Spanish grammatical gender, by English- and Spanish-speaking children, and by adults. Results revealed artificial-male/natural female conceptual division among speakers of English and delayed effects of grammatical gender among speakers…

Argues that Grammatik 5 for Windows software presents users with feedback that is often wrong, frequently confusing, and sometimes irrelevant. Expresses grave concerns about it both as a teaching tool and as a subtle means of propagating a political perspective. (SR)

Reviews the nature-convention debate over language from the classical period through the 20th century, examining various views as to whether language constitutes a set of wholly arbitrary correspondences between words and things, or correspondences and rules grounded at least partly in something outside language, such as nature. (24 references)…

Paper examines interaction of semantic contributions of aspect markers "-guo" and "-le"; negative adverbs "bu" and "mei"; and two classes of verbs. Proposed analysis systematically accounts for temporal orientation of members of several classes of sentences in terms of aspectual contributions made by two aspect markers, negative adverbs, verbs,…

Examines the effectiveness of grammar checking computer software in the journalism classroom. Finds that grammar checkers, in their current stage of development, may detract from learning rather than enhance it because of numerous errors in students' writing that went undetected. (RS)

Argues that the grammar of a language can be viewed as the systematic way that it works and, like everything else in life, grammar is subject to change. (JL)