Reviews vantage theory and makes a claim that it does not replace, but coexists with a semantics for color terms. Identifies basic facts about countability in English, and presents further evidence of the fact that the grammar of number and quantification in English is exploited to reveal different conceptualizations of what is spoken of. Claims…

Studied a bilingual Italian-English aphasic patient who was very poor in categorizing Italian nouns for grammatical gender in explicit metalinguistic tasks, and was at chance when gender could not be inferred from the word's phonology. However, she showed a good ability to modify adjectives to match the gender of nouns in a task that involved…

Discusses syntactic optionality, the coexistence within an individual grammar of two or more variants of a given construction that make use of the same lexical resources and express the same meaning. Focus is on syntactic optionality in second language grammars. (Author/VWL)

Discussion of methodologies for the semantic integration of databases focuses on formalizing the notion of schema equivalence and the schema integration process. Topics include common data model; the Entity-Relationship (ER)model; transformation of ER models; transformational, mapping, and behavioral schema equivalence; and knowledge-based…

Describes a study of the effect of direct story grammar instruction for first graders. Finds that (1) young children benefit from simple story structures that focus on beginning, middle and end; and (2) this structure may provide young children with a foundation for developing an understanding of the elements of story grammar. (NH)

Examined input frequency, sentence position, and duration as contributing factors to grammatical inflections. In parents' conversations with and stories aimed at young children, noun plural inflections were more frequent than third singular verb inflections, especially in sentence-final position. Analysis of four mothers' speech when reading…

Investigated young children's learning of the correct use of first and second person pronouns, using feed-forward neural networks. The study involved four computer simulations using the cascade-correlation (CC) learning algorithm. Results indicated that the CC networks could produce the correct pronouns without errors if children heard pronouns…

Attempts to show that open syllable lengthening (OSL) was part of the grammar of the West Germanic languages: Middle English, Middle Dutch, and Middle High German. Claims that all three languages endeavored to maintain and maximize the Germanic foot, and OSL contributed in different ways to do so. (Author/VWL)

Discusses the status of grammar rules in language awareness approaches where learners are encouraged to notice and reflect on regularities in the language. Examines the accuracy of rules transmitted in English-as-a-foreign-language classrooms. Argues that teachers' awareness of the language is sometimes misinformed and that half-truths may be…

In a series of production and grammaticality judgment experiments, I investigated the status of children's non-adult questions with 2 auxiliary verbs, such as "What did the smurf didn't buy." Previous studies showed that these questions were produced primarily in negative contexts. In the first part of the study, I tested whether children produce…

Two experiments were carried out to investigate the processing of the empty category PRO and the time-course of this in Spanish. Eye movements were recorded while participants read sentences in which a matrix clause was followed by a subordinate infinitival clause, so that the subject or the object of the main clause could act as controller of…

Stewart, Pickering, and Sanford (1998) reported a new type of semantic inference, implicit consequentiality, which they suggest is comparable to, although not directly related to, the well-documented phenomenon of implicit causality. It is our contention that there is a direct relation between these two semantic phenomena but that this relation…

This column shares innovative lesson ideas grounded in current literature or action research. Two books are discussed: Lesley Atwater Kahle's book "Cut Word Story," which allows students to become individually engrossed in words and grammar within stories that they create; and Anete Vasquez's "Literary Analysis 101", which gives teachers a simple,…

Hearing children from deaf families, Codas, represent a relatively invisible linguistic and cultural minority. Many hearing people are unaware of the fact that American Sign Language (ASL) is a separate language with its own grammatical structure unlike that of English. This misconception has led to an emphasis on oral education for deaf people in…

Many moments that humans see naturally suggest something other than themselves. This is a legacy from the remotest time. Among animals, movements of prey and predator give each an indication of what may happen next and a basis for choosing their own actions. As species evolved, the movements that could be made and the meanings that could be…