Describes how two conversants can jointly produce a single syntactic unit, such as a sentence, discussing the types of sentences achieved through joint production, the single utterance construction format, syntax for conversation, interactionally relevant features of talk, and the resources needed to complete an utterance-in-progress. (37…

Shows how the subject pronoun in a cleft sentence together with the cleft clause function pragmatically as a discontinuous definite description. Presents a new syntactic analysis of clefts, which treats the cleft clause as an extraposed complement of the cleft subject pronoun, adjoined to the clefted constituent. (Author/VWL)

The purpose of this research was to ascertain if the reading comprehension skills of English-speaking fifth grade students improve when they study a second language. The research was done in an inner-city elementary school in Rochester, New York. The researcher provided a weekly after-school workshop in foreign languages for a group of children…

Direct quotation can be a source of meaning in storybook texts for beginning readers. The author of this article sketches the linguistic complexity of direct quotation and offers instructional strategies. Three aspects of direct quotation are examined: the cluster of print features and syntactic characteristics that direct quotation involves, the…

On the ground that reading fluency entails appropriate phrasing or prosody as well as facile word recognition, we investigated the effectiveness of text-based and word-based repeated readings procedures for promoting fluency of reading aloud and comprehension in second-grade children. Repeated readings of text printed with spaces between phrases…

This practical resource provides 40 research-based, classroom tested, and developmentally appropriate minilessons for kindergarten through grade 3--presented in the context of authentic writing experiences. Teachers can use these lessons to teach students how to: (1) Generate and organize ideas before writing, and then turn their prewriting ideas…

Evidence from 3 experiments reveals interference effects from structural relationships that are inconsistent with any grammatical parse of the perceived input. Processing disruption was observed when items occurring between a head and a dependent overlapped with either (or both) syntactic or semantic features of the dependent. Effects of syntactic…

A number of recent electrophysiological studies of sentence processing have shown that a subclass of syntactic violations elicits very rapid ERP responses, occurring within around 200 ms of the onset of the violation. Such findings raise the question of how it is possible to diagnose violations so quickly. This paper suggests that very rapid…

In Spanish, there is a very common type of sentence that has the following properties: (1) one of the arguments of the verb is a noun phrase that consists of an article and a noun; (2) there is also a dative pronoun dependent on the verb; and (3) the dative pronoun is understood as the possessor of the definite noun. It has been suggested that…

A study was conducted to verify Karttunen's (1973) theoretical linguistic distinction between verbs that function as "plugs" and those that function as "holes." Plugs are defined as performative verbs that block off a sentence's presuppositions so that they are not necessarily part of the speaker's own beliefs. Holes, on the…

The principal nominal deictic affixes of Bella Coola, a Salishan language of British Columbia, are examined. (Author/RM)

Explores the systematic arrangement of elements in American Sign Language and compares it with English syntax. (KM)

This study explores the relationship between question intonation patterns in French using dislocated questions and question-focus (Q- focus). A dislocated question is defined as an interrogative sentence whose sequence is interrupted by the topicalization of a constituent at the left ("Toi, tu viens?"), at the right (Tu viens,…

It is suggested that invited inference is a case of valid inference by saying that English "if...then" sentences are logically ambigous. The ambiguity of "if...then" sentences may be related syntactically or semantically to "or.""Or,""if...then," and "and" all invite inferences. (SC)