Examines the process of formation of the "syntheme" in German, and its role in the economy of language. (AM)

Considers the various meanings and uses of the Russian particle "khot'." The article adapts material from "Particles in Colloquial Russian" (Progress Publishers, Moscow) by A.N. Vasilyeva. (Text is in German.) (FB)

Investigates whether syntax signals foregrounding/backgrounding structure in English. Backgrounded the main clause using progressive or pluperfect aspect. A rating study showed coreference was allowed more frequently for pronouns in main clauses when those clauses contained progressive or pluperfect aspect. (Author/VWL)

Summarizes and evaluates research on aphasia, and indicates problem areas that must be studied. (52 references) (CFM)

Describes and compares restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses and shows that, when studying their superficial differences, there is no need for construction-specific stipulations that distinguish between them. All the superficial differences between the two are derived from the single basic difference that one is a modifier and the other is not.…

Explores the fit between syntax and semantics by addressing the following questions: (1) To what extent is the distribution of bare infinitive complements semantically motivated? and (2) What is the function of infinitival to? (46 references) (GLR)

Discusses the syntactic properties of participial adjuncts and the relevant general syntactic principles in Eastern Bengali, specifically those responsible for case-assignment, word order, and binding properties. (40 references) (Author/VWL)

Contrasts the hypothetical conditional or "modo potencial" in Spanish with the subsequence conditional. Passages from "El habla de la ciudad de Mexico" and from works by Carballido and Borges are cited as examples. Other grammatical studies of the Spanish conditional are reviewed. (LMO)

Discusses the numerical distribution of the six logically possible orders of the Subject (S), Object (O), and Verb (V) across world languages. It is argued that the semantic relations of S, O, and V are best characterized as three concentric regions; S contained in O and O contained in V. (29 references) (Author/VWL)

This article presents an analysis and review of Ljiljana Progovac's "Negative and Positive Polarity: A Binding Approach" (1994). It concludes that by pushing a syntactic analysis of polarity to, if not beyond, its limits, Progovac has focused attention on the work that remains for any approach to polarity to resolve. Contains 59…

A theme running through much of the functionalist literature in linguistics is that grammatical structure often has an "iconic" motivation. Claims supporting this theme are discounted, and the implications are discussed of iconic relationships in language for the autonomy hypothesis and the evolution of language. (190 references)…

Most recent approaches to language learnability and acquisition have assumed that parameter setting is largely a deductive process. This article develops the thesis that parameter setting is correctly viewed as nondeductive. This approach uses natural selection, as simulated by a genetic algorithm, to simulate parameter setting. (90 references)…

Metalinguistic awareness, one's awareness of and control over one's language, is described; related research is discussed; and studies that have attempted to determine the relationship between metalinguistic awareness and bilingualism are examined. (18 references) (JL)

Argues in favor of a syntactic analysis of secondary predication and against the semantic approach to predication. Most of the evidence to be adduced comes from Spanish. It is posited that secondary predicates are base-generated inside VP in Spanish, confirming Culicover and Wilken's (1984) and Robert's (1988) analysis for English. (40 references)…

Attempts to provide a precise definition for topic and to derive most of the properties of topic from this definition. The main assumption is that the topic-comment construction is a syntactic device employed to fulfill certain discourse functions. (Author/VWL)