Recent work in word-order typology has demonstrated that the dominant order of verbs and objects (or complements) correlates well with the general ordering tendencies of languages. The work on German reported in this paper suggests, however, that certain traits, such as the order of adverbials, are influenced not only by general ordering…

This paper is intended to be the first part of a study contrasting the subjunctive of French with that of English and comparing it in both languages with the syntactic devices that can replace it. It examines the syntactic constraints on the use of subjunctive forms in French, the semantic contrast between indicative and subjunctive forms, and the…

Right dislocations are expressions of the following form: (1) "They told the Grand Jury a number of lies, the Nixon men." (2) "We find we have to limit our social schedule, my husband and I." (3) "Mary always wears a frown, the ugly witch." They are found also almost exclusively in the spoken language. This paper…

This paper describes and gives the results of a psycholinguistic experiment investigating the impact of certain surface syntactic structures on the perception and memory of language. The basic assumption is that the content of an utterance must be its most salient aspect in memory. The for of an utterance, its surface grammar and phonology, must…

A possible application of generative-transformational (phrase-structure) grammar to the teaching of English composition at the college freshman level is described in this dissertation, which presents a potential textbook for a course on language and its relationship to culture. Topics discussed include traditional grammar, the bases of…

This paper discusses interrogative structures, based on the results and conclusions derived from comparing the interrogative systems of 79 randomly selected languages. The paper begins by listing a number of generalizations about interrogative structures based on disparate observations in the field. These generalizations constitute the basis for…

This study is concerned with the description of compound sentences, relative clauses, and complement clauses in Standard Persian within a generative-transformational grammar. Compound sentences are divided into conjunctive, disjunctive, and adversative types on the basis of the semantic relations they express. A conjunctive clause is either…

This paper defines the grammatical role of a particle in Swahili in terms of the semantic information which it contributes to all utterances in which it occurs. The particle -A occurs in the syntactic configuration Noun 1 -A Noun 2 and has been traditionally described as reflecting relations of possession and attribution between the two nouns in…

Answers to questions asked of college freshman composition students indicated that one-third lacked confidence in their ability to write because of their ignorance of the rules of grammar and inability to use correct grammar. This may be a result of the textbook presentation of grammar as a straightforward set of rules to be mastered without…

Secondary school students can be taught the skills of precise and complex composition by providing analysis of sentence types. While in the process of learning the formation of complex sentences, students should be given the opportunity to read more complex sentences as well. Christensen's study of modifier types (whether initial, medial, or…

This paper suggests methods for teaching the Russian verbs that govern what are loosely termed "objects" in oblique cases. The case government of such verbs is not necessarily an individual irregularity. Definite patterns emerge, both morphological and semantic, to facilitate grouping these verbs into classes. Russian verbs requiring genitive…

This paper argues that the hypothesis that all languages have a definitization process is empirically refutable, and that use of the terminology "definite" and "indefinite" is justified in that it reflects intuitions of grammarians and linguists. The following statements are tested against evidence from samples of different languages: (1) all noun…

The report is a frequency analysis of vocabulary and sentence patterns in the English language. The corpora used are a media sample, a discussion session, elicited sentences, and words elicited for frame sentences. The outputs are the following frequency tables: (1) Semantic frequency of combined corpus (media, discussion, elicited sentences)…

The report is a frequency analysis of vocabulary and sentence patterns in the Japanese language. The corpora used are a media sample, a discussion session, elicited sentences, and words elicited for frame sentences. The outputs are the following frequency tables: (1) semantic frequency of combined corpus (media, discussion, elicited sentences)…

The report is a frequency analysis of vocabulary and sentence patterns in the Swahili language. The corpora used are a media sample, a discussion session, elicited sentences, and words elicited for frame sentences. The outputs are the following frequency tables: (1) semantic frequency of combined corpus (media, discussion, elicited sentences)…