Certain aspects of transformational grammar can be effectively applied to the ESL classroom. The use of the "there" insertion rule in explaining declarative sentence patterns is described as an example. (AG)

In decoding a text, one chooses the interpretation involving maximal redundancy, selecting meanings that are most likely and least surprising in the relevant context. Clues for this selection of meanings are gathered from phonetic, phonemic, morphological, syntactic, lexical, and stylistic levels. In disambiguating third-person-pronoun references…

An experiment replicating earlier research on the pronoun bias effect in reading comprehension, in which the pronoun "they" in an auditory fragment influences the syntactic analysis of an ambiguous expression, used a new technique in which words in a fragment are cumulated on an electronic monitor rather than being presented one by one.…

An experimental study investigating the interaction of linguistic complexity and performance in child language acquisition tests the hypothesis that children learning a first language acquire relatively complex sentences somewhat later than less complex sentences. In one of three tests, the subjects, 44 children aged 3.6 to 6 years, were presented…

An analysis of English sentences containing noun phrases (NPs) with extraposed complements argues that the extraposition (EX) is base-generated and not derived by any applications of the Move-alpha principle. A Move-alpha analysis is subject to substantial technical difficulties, and there exist cases of EX for which there is no plausible source…

"Writeability" is concerned with helping writers and editors produce materials on easier readability levels. A major input of most readability formulas is vocabulary difficulty. One way to increase readability is to use simple vocabulary or shorter words since word frequency studies show that more common words are shorter. The other…

In comparing research results and current textbook practices regarding the acquisition of relative clauses in a second language, it was found that there is a discrepancy between the approaches presented by textbooks and those taken by learners. A pedagogical approach was developed and tested which closely reflects what learners do. The results of…

Milton's style of pronominal reference in his essay, "Areopagitica," leads to a lack of comprehension at times and to slow processing. His use of demonstrative pronouns makes it difficult to identify antecedents precisely and quickly. For example, in one case a reader must go back over 400 words to find an antecedent. His use of relative…

Intended to improve the quality of public documents by making them clearer to the people who use them, this book contains document design principles concerned with writing documents that are visually distinct, attractive, and easily understood. Following an introduction, the major portion of the book presents the 25 principles, each of which…

This study attempted to place children's language in its wider setting and considered the meanings the child can express in connection with the orms in which he expresses them. (Author/RK)

Rhetorical and linguistic concepts of the sentence are reviewed in the course of introducing the concept of the "minor sentence" (sentence fragments which may occur alone as complete linguistic utterances or which may be combined by parataxis or coordinators with a major sentence). Rather than restraining beginning writers from using…

Two experiments examine the extent to which the representation of a sentence depends upon the overall nature of a subject's task, in this case, memorization of a sentence and providing a continuation for a sentence. (AM)

Describes, adducting many examples, the external relative clause, discussing it from the pedagogical standpoint. This type of clause, belonging to normal speech, and not being merely a stylistic matter, belongs in the basic course. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)