Describes Albert Camus's writings regarding semantic abuses in public rhetoric. (DD)

This study investigated the development of understanding of animate and inanimate items in 52 children between 4 and 7 years of age. (Author/JMB)

Language disabled (LD) and average (N=40) six- and eight-year-olds were evaluated on the ability to detect multiple word meanings in ambiguous sentences with and without picture clues and to identify appropriate word meaning by sentence context. LD students did not show average growth in these abilities over the two-year age span. (Author/DB)

Two experiments investigated sentence context effects on the naming times of sentence completion words by third-grade children and college students. The semantic acceptability of the word in the sentence context had a much greater influence on children's word identification times than adults'. (Author/CB)

Four new military training systems offer the opportunity for the application of cognitive science. They are the following: (1) a family of memorization games; (2) a simulator with a graphic, schematic student interface; (3) a system for solving problems of relative motion; and (4) a method of building cognitive skills for air-intercept control.…

Examines the covariational relationships believed to exist between behaviors and traits, relationships which play a particularly crucial role in both impression formation and competence evaluation. Concludes that trait-behavior relationships are, with one exception, similar across competence level and communicative situation. (RS)

Six studies, with 174 three-year-olds in California, investigated whether children's knowledge of a label for an object excluded the possibility that they would accept another label for the object. Results indicate that mutual exclusivity motivates children to learn terms for attributes, substances, parts, and objects. (TJH)

Examines the syntactic and semantic relationship between verb forms I and II in modern standard Arabic. The main function of form II verbs was causative/factitive, with the core elements of the causative including (1) agent-subject, (2) action-process verb, and (3) patient-object. (CB)

Considers children's understanding and use of contrast in language, including discussion of the role contrast plays in adult speech, the kinds of contrast commonly exemplified, and possible tests for sameness or difference of meaning. (CB)

Examines the age at which and the form in which children produce speech acts which commit them to a future action. Results revealed that all of the four- to 11-year-olds produced directive speech acts, but only the older children used the explicit performative verb "promise" to reassure the hearer of their commitment. (Author/CB)

Examines the relationship between children's attribute saliency and metaphor interpretation. Findings indicate that attribute saliency for the individual perceiving the metaphor plays a key role in the interpretation process. (Author/CB)

The ability of 22 phonologically disordered and normally speaking children's ability to process (phonologically, syntactically, and semantically) spoken language was evaluated. No differences between groups was found in number of errors, pattern of errors, or reaction times when monitoring sentences for target words, irrespective of sentence type.…

Spanish modal verbs may express necessity, obligation, probability, and possibility, in either their personal or impersonal modes. Analysis is based on examples of contemporary Madrid speech. Four modals, "poder,""deber (de)," tener que," and "haber que," are placed within a tripartite structure defined by…

Discusses the accentuation of two types of sentence in English: (1) straightforward intransitive sentences, and (2) intransitive sentences embedded in the frame "It's just NP noun phrase[ V verb[-ing." Modifications to Gussenhoven's (1983) Sentence Accent Assignment Rule (SAAR) are suggested based on large groups of exceptions of the SAAR.…

This article argues in favor of a receptive vocabulary component in foreign language courses through consideration of: productive vs. receptive vocabulary knowledge; misconceptions in receptive vocabulary instruction; and classroom-tested approaches and activities for receptive vocabulary development. (CB)