Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded while participants read and made acceptability judgments about sentences containing three types of adjective sequences: (1) normal sequences--e.g., "Jennifer rode a huge gray elephant"; (2) reversed sequences that violate grammatical-semantic constraints on linear order--e.g., *"Jennifer rode a…

Unlike the vocabulary used in language arts and social studies, knowledge of expository text (text written to inform) and the language of science are required for reading and writing in science (Carrier 2005). This vocabulary, along with expository text structures, often is not taught in middle and high school classrooms, thus hindering students,…

The aim of this study was to investigate whether a physiological measure of impaired use of context could be obtained in people with Asperger's Syndrome (AS). The experimental paradigm employed was the use of electroencephalography to measure the detection of semantic incongruity within written sentences, as indexed by an N400 event-related…

The author shows the importance of punctuation: why it is used, and how it is used. (MR)

Children's early attempts at syntax, previously described in terms of pivot grammar, are discussed in the light of the author's research on the semantic intentions of early two-word sentences. Underlying conceptual relations were identified when such utterances were examined along with context and behavior. (Author/KW)

A book describing children's utterances in terms of similarities to and deviations from the "well-formed structures of the adult model is reviewed. (DB)

Discusses when an infinitive may appear directly after a noun in Spanish and which word is used and why if a preposition or other such word is required. Examples used are where the infinitive phrase is the predicate nominative with the verb "ser," where the infinitive acts as the grammatical subject, and where the infinitive phrase is a…

Presents study which shows that although these causatives have same surface structure as productive causative constructions they differ in several ways, e.g., unlike other productive causatives their meaning changes when "que" subjunctive is substituted for the infinitive, and they function like lexical causatives which involve agent-patient, not…

Distinguishes among three different adverbial modifiers--those of purpose, of antipurpose, and of subsequent events. Suggests this delineation leads to a better understanding of English texts. (Author/BK)

Examines the question of the transitivity of the part-whole relation in grammar, in the context of the sentence and its semantic structure. (AM)

Analysis of six cross-linguistic properties characterizing the head verb in the resultative construction in Chinese shows that the first verb, and not the second verb, should be analyzed as the head verb. (15 references) (Author/CB)

Describes the development of new statistical formulas for identifying two- and three-character words in Chinese text by performing stepwise logistic regression using a sample of sentences that had been manually segmented. Concludes that the new contextual information formulas are substantially better than the mutual information formula.…

Discusses issues important to the study of the typology of transitivity. Data from numerous languages are presented to show what parameters can contribute to the linguistic expression of transitive events typologically. (Author/VWL)

The topic chain is a frequently used structure in Chinese. In this article, its structural characteristics and its use in written narrative text are examined. Three major claims are made: (a) The topic of a chain does not have to overtly occur in the chain-initial clause as commonly believed; (b) depending on the context, a zero noun phrase (NP)…

In the present study we use event related potentials (ERPs) to explore the time course of identification and resolution of verb gaps. ERPs were recorded while participants read sentences that contained a verb gap like "Ron took/sanded the planks, and Bill O the hammer"... Plausibility of the critical words ("hammer") that followed the verb gap was…