This study compared the effect of productivity (a correlate of suffix frequency) on derivational suffix use in 69 elementary and middle school students' derivational suffix use. Twenty-three students had language-learning disabilities (LLD). Students with and without LLD used highly productive suffixes but LLD students were less accurate in…

A study involving 18 children with reading difficulties (grades 4- 9), 33 children controls, and 19 adult controls found that poor readers have less difficulty reading words whose forms are phonologically and orthographically transparent than reading words the base forms of which undergo a phonological shift when a suffix is added. (Contains…

In many languages, the production of noun phrases requires the selection of gender-marked elements like determiners or inflectional suffixes. There is a recent debate as to whether the selection of freestanding gender-marked elements, such as determiners, follows the same processing mechanisms as the selection of bound gender-marked morphemes,…

This paper examines a phenomenon in the Setswana language whereby certain affixes, when combining with the verbal base, adjust their positions and forms according to phonological rules that can be termed "imbrication." D. T. Cole, among others, made a fair attempt at a morphological identification of these realizations, but did not go…

A study examined the applicability of the Ordering Hypothesis to Japanese suffixes. The hypothesis, which claims that affixes that trigger phonological rules (cyclical affixes) do not appear external to affixes that do not, is found to be an inappropriate assumption in Japanese. Examples in English and Chamorro support this finding. It is…

Deals with clause chaining in Washkuk, a language spoken by about 2500 people in northeastern New Guinea. Four clause types are ranked from lowest to highest. Any clause subordinates all preceding clauses of lower order. (TL)

This paper examines the validity of aspects of Chomsky and Halle's analysis of English phonology, specifically regarding rules for vowel alternation in base and derived forms. The paper describes an aural and an orthographic experiment eliciting the production of novel forms from a base form. Results showed no vowel alternation in 90 percent of…

Presents an heuristic procedure, based on cooccurrence of forms, for identifying the closed systems of a language and to show how the systems interlock, differ in meaning, and manifest themselves. (AM)

In the frameword of generalized phrase-structure grammar, possessive clitics (POSS), bound words (BWs), and phrasal affixes (PAs) are analyzed. It is argued that English POSS should be treated as an edge-located inflectional affix, since POSS is suppressed in the presence of other Z affixes (plural, other possessives). (Author/LMO)

This workbook is designed to help students expand their spelling, vocabulary, and comprehension skills through the study of roots, prefixes, and suffixes. Noting that roots, prefixes, and suffixes are the building blocks upon which all words are formed, the introduction contends that a thorough knowledge of these elements will greatly enhance…

This workbook is designed to help secondary-school students expand their spelling, vocabulary, and comprehension skills through the study of roots, prefixes, and suffixes. Noting that roots, prefixes, and suffixes are the building blocks upon which all words are formed, the introduction contends that a thorough knowledge of these elements will…

Ten objects were used to assess comprehension, production, and imitation of comparative and superlative suffixes in 100 children ranging in age from two years, six months, to four years, six months. (Author/AM)

Investigates how and what properties of abstract lexical entries in the mental lexicon interact with the distribution of surface morphemes in language contact or first language attrition. Data from Hungarian/English bilingual children provide evidence that asymmetries in the production of Hungarian preverbs and case suffixes may be explained by…

Examines the behavior of the morpheme, um, in Toba Batak and Tagalog, which alternates as a prefix or an infix, arguing that the variation is conditioned by constraints on consonant clusters. Three patterns of variation that occur with um are described, noting that the stages involved in changing from infixed to prefixed positions over time are…

Discusses how deflexion counters certain grammaticalization-related claims and emphasizes the socio-cultural context of overall grammar, arguing that grammaticalization changes must be understood in the context of a grammar's history as a whole. Using data from Swedish, shows that deflexion (directly or indirectly) results in the upgrading of…