Mean length of utterance (MLU) of 15 Down's Syndrome children, aged 2-12, was examined and found to correlate highly with chronological age despite the children's language delays, at least up to MLU 3.00. MLU also predicted complexity and diversity of bound morphemes and major syntactic structures from MLU 1.00-3.50. (Author/JDD)

Examines the changes in how researchers perceive the relationship between theories of language and theories of language acquisition. It is determined that a theory of grammar is a necessary component in native language acquisition and may also be required for second-language acquisition. (Author/CB)

Discusses the pros and cons of grammatical consciousness raising in (English as a second language) pedagogy, arguing that meaningful research on the effectiveness of formal instruction must abandon notions of language learning as the accumulation of language entities and consider consciousness raising with regard to grammatical processes and the…

Complements a previous article on the Russian verb system, treating deverbals (participles and gerunds) and the imperative mood. Paradigms for deriving each form for the three verb classes are indicated where (1) the infinitive is base form; (2) past tense is derived from infinitive; and (3) neither past nor nonpast is derived from infinitive.…

Describes several teacher-developed software programs for computer-assisted language learning which meet a need for communicative, inductively-based software that is controlled by students and can be used as research tools as well. (Author/CB)

Unless a clear distinction is made between the semantic time reference of the modal "perfect" and that of the present perfect aspect, these forms will remain confusing to students of English as a second language. A brief sequence is suggested for teaching modals which incorporates and clarifies these time relationships and simplifies the…

Outlines a strategy for constructing, piloting, and evaluating second language courseware using an existing authoring language. Specific techniques for screen and item development are included. (MSE)

The article explores the development of children's understanding of causality, its effect on narrative development and organization; and the development of intentional, goal directed behavior. (Author/DB)

Respectively, three experiments indicate that (1) people can identify all the terminal units in stories as well as different kinds of episodic structure; (2) when attention was focused on the intermediate units, the Goal Path emerged in the judgments; and (3) the same judgments about terminal units were made even when the number of sentences per…

Argues that the explanation of the use of "ser" and "estar" with locatives presented in the March 1984 issue of "Hispania" derives so directly from a theory of universal grammar because it is indicative of the explanatory adequacy of Case Grammar or of other, comparable theories of the deeper levels of linguistic structure. (SED)

Examines the negative consequences of using pedagogical grammars of English dominated by theoretical models which affect English as a second language composition. Limitations of these "models" include: lack of broad vocabulary, semantically "empty" verbs, and an emphasis on the use of awkward grammatical structures, which are regarded as more…

Describes an informal study to see whether college English majors judged a relative clause as restrictive or nonrestrictive. Most assumed that it was restrictive, based on speech patterns. Suggests that teachers should recognize the fact that a nonrestrictive relative clause is an invention that does not exist in the English language. (HTH)

The authors describe the development and role of story grammars and note the implications for assessment of story production and retelling, scrambled stories, and the macrocloze technique (testing the child's ability to predict or infer missing information). Remediation procedures for improving prediction skills and training story grammar…

Describes a project begun as an attempt to see if it was possible to exchange meaningful messages in natural English with a machine and whether this could aid acquisition. The result is a group of dialog-stimulator programs which generate guestions, find answers to questions, obey commands, and assimilate new knowledge. (SED)

Describes a study to determine: (1) the relationship between age and mean length of utterance measured in morphemes (MLU) in a group of normally developing two- and three-year-old chidren; (2) the standard error of MLU; (3) the relationship between MLU and age; and, (4) the ability of MLU to predict children's grammatical development. (SED)