This paper draws from data on 123 languages to examine the semantics of comparative systems in an attempt to define as closely as possible the relationships that exist among three basic types of constructions and among their constituents. It is determined that superlatives mark absolute disparity, that comparatives mark relative disparity, and…

The general aim of this study was to provide a research strategy for members of interdisciplinary teams in exploring the interrelationship between group and individual in the therapy group process. The special focus of the study was to provide a design model that could synthesize a wide variety of data gained from group interaction, individual…

For this study of children's selection of key words, children in the first, third, sixth, ninth and twelfth grades were asked to identify which words, in their judgment, were key words in written materials. Relationship of these choices to skilled readers, to words derived from passage analysis, and to random selections of hypothetical subjects…

Two experiments on unaided and cued recall of sentences presented in context to college students are reported in this study. Key nouns in the sentences were arranged to have uniform surface functions, but to vary independently in deep syntactic category and semantic function. Cued recall for sentences in which the semantic function of actor and…

While semantic development has been alleged to proceed slowly, reading instruction begins early in the child's school career. Yet, little research has been addressed toward understanding how beginning readers extract meaning from the printed word. This paper reports two experiments that measured latencies in a picture-word interference task to…

Four realizations of the copula occur in English, two in both Anglo and Black English and two in Black English and in some varieties of Anglo English but not in standard English. This paper describes the use of the copula in English and identifies the phonological, syntactic, and semantic factors which are believed to condition its realization in…

The author calls attention to a basic split between perception and cognition that psychologists or linguists tend to make either explicitly or implicitly. There is some psychological evidence to substantiate, at least for higher developmental levels, the functional importance of this split. The chief problems for psycholinguistics which arise out…

This paper, a commentary on W.W. Gage's article "Uncommonly Taught Languages" (AL 002 524), attempts to stress other aspects than those treated by Gage and points out the practical and technical needs of those interested in the field. The author views the goal of the study of uncommonly taught languages at the understanding of other peoples and…

This paper represents a preliminary attempt to determine universals of grammatical development in children. On the basis of language acquisition data, a limited number of findings are presented in the form of suggested developmental universals. These universals are grouped according to the psychological variables which may determine them, in the…

Research was undertaken to develop techniques to facilitate natural communication with computers, people, other computers, and real-time devices. The work has been carried on as an integrated research program; work on semantic automatic language processing and automatic programing aids was performed, and work on the development of time-sharing…

This paper describes PAL--a new computer language. It is used as a pedagogical vehicle in an undergraduate subject called "Programming Linguistics." This subject is designed primarily for sophomores who anticipate a major professional interest in computer science and has two objectives. The first is to study linguistic constructs for the…

This paper explores and discusses the concept of reading comprehension from two major perspectives. One perspective is based on the theory that reading comprehension constitutes a pattern of skills. The other perspective is based on a psycholinguistic view of reading: reading as a language process. Strategies for gaining comprehension during…

Early childhood learning of language has led some to postulate innate knowledge of an abstract symbolic linguistic system. However, if the child's abstract understanding initially requires concrete support in the form of agreement of the message with his nonlinguistic experience, the indication would be that the development of syntactic…

This 40 item questionnaire was developed to measure students' attitudes toward police officers. For the first 28 items the students read a statement and select a response ranging from agreeing strongly to disagreeing strongly on a five point scale. The students indicate their attitudes toward police on a scale of semantic distance between pairs of…

A result of a three-week reading institute at Northern Illinois University during the summer of 1974, this publication consists of papers focusing on various aspects of reading from a psycholinguistic perspective and strategy lessons to be used in the development of effective and efficient readers. The contents include five sections: "Moving to…