Summarized were eight studies comparing aspects of sentence comprehension skills in normal and learning disabled (LD) children. Questions such as the following were posed: Does the transformation of kernel sentences to passive negative questions affect sentence comprehension? Does the amount of feedback affect the level of sentence comprehension?…

This paper examines, within the framework of case grammar, the alternant relationship that holds between the simplex in (1) "The thought frightened me" and (2) "The thought made me frightened," and between the simplex in (3) "John trembled with fear" and (4) "Fear made John tremble." It is shown that while…

In order to explore the effect of semantic organization on the comprehension of sentences, this research, based on the hypothesis that fully grammatical sentences would be processed more easily than anomalous sentences, depended on data provided by 20 paid college students serving in individual sessions. Each student listened to 30 tape-recorded…

Two studies investigated preschool children's comprehension of the missing subject of infinitival complement clauses. In the first study, use of a Surface Structure Minimal Distance principle of the type outlined by C. Chomsky was distinguished from use of a Semantic Role Principle. Preschoolers acted out sentences in which the use of the two…

The primary aim of this study was to ascertain whether expectations affect children's performance on a measure designed to assess development of understanding of the Minimum Distance Principle (MDP) and its exceptions. There were three major hypotheses: (1) sentences harmonious with expectation should be more easily understood than neutral…

The first section of this study traces the history of the story of "Little Red Riding Hood," from its possible primitive origins, through its first publication in 1697, up to its current status. The second section analyzes the language of an interesting 1856 version of the tale and compares it with more modern versions. Table I indicates…

The behavior of the "It's...who..." type of construction and its relation to defining and non-defining relative clauses is examined. Reference is made particularly to suprasegmental features. Parallels are drawn to French relative constructions. (SCC)

Three linguistically significant dimensions of differences between illocutionary acts are outlined which are said to form the basis of a taxonomy of the fundamental classes of illocutionary acts. Five basic kinds of illoctionary acts are defined. An assessment is made of Austin's classification. (Author/RM)

Some task variables that influence sentence coding, and the ways in which those influences appear to be manifested in performance were outlined. Trends in empirical data were examined as evidence for two classes of coding strategies. (Author/RK)

In two experiments Ss (16 undergraduate students in the first, 14 in the second) listened to a sentence containing a brief tone, then wrote out the sentence and marked the location of the tone. (Author/SBH)

Discusses, using German and Italian as an example, sentences containing the indefinite agent (German "man") and reflexive and passive constructions, showing contrasts between equivalent structures in the two languages. (IFS/WGA)

The rules usually taught for german word order and order of sentence elements are seen as inaccurate. A numerical system is proposed which takes from the Duden grammar the three-field system, using the predicate segments as an orientation point. (IFS/WGA)

Demonstrates through an examination of naturally occurring discourse that Wh-Clefts and It-Clefts are not interchangeable; they have highly specialized distributions and functions. (EJS)

Proposes description of Latin syntactic structures through an analysis of their communicative functions. (AM)

Analyzes "possessive" reflexives in French, within the framework of a generative grammar approach. A list of examples is appended. (AM)