The source of syntactic ambiguity and facts concerning the resolution of such ambiguity are discussed in this paper. The attitude of qenerative linguists towards ambiguity is examined, and a working distinction is drawn between vaqueness and ambiguity. The consequences of this distinction are then examined for syntactic ambiguity and an ordering…

The oral reading miscue patterns of 26 normal students in grades one, two, and three were compared with those of 26 educable mentally retarded students from primary, intermediate, and junior high school classes. Intelligence quotients ranged from 94 to 137 for the normal students and from 50 to 80 for the retarded students. During the testing…

A progress report is presented of a study which applies a system of generative grammar to error analysis. The objective of the study was to reconstruct the grammar of students' interlanguage, using a systematic analysis of errors. (Interlanguage refers to the linguistic competence of a student who possesses a relatively systematic body of rules,…

A study was conducted of the Baie Sainte-Marie Acadian dialect, a particular form of the French language derived from the French spoken in France during the 16th and 17th centuries. The purpose of this study was to analyze and explain a certain number of morphosyntactic deviations from standard French, from both a synchronic and a diachronic…

MATERIALS FOR THE NEBRASKA ELEMENTARY ENGLISH CURRICULUM INCLUDE AN ANCILLARY POETRY MANUAL FOR GRADES ONE THROUGH SIX. ATTENTION IS GIVEN TO INCREASING THE CHILD'S PLEASURE IN POETRY, BROADENING HIS KNOWLEDGE OF POETRY, AND HELPING HIM TO EXPRESS HIMSELF MORE CREATIVELY. CHILDREN ARE ENCOURAGED FIRST TO ENJOY THE READING OF POEMS AND THEN TO…

Contrastive analysis is suggested as a tool in language teaching for such areas as: (1) deciding how much to focus on different aspects of the target language; (2) making generalizations about its structure; and (3) explaining texts or constructions which might otherwise be incomprehensible. The claim is made that such procedures need to be based…

This textbook is designed as a first-year course at the undergraduate level. It is specifically aimed at students with no prior knowledge of Armenian, and emphasis has been placed on the numerous subtleties and nuances of Armenian which might seem strange or difficult to English speakers. In the text, stress has been put on explaining the grammar…

This paper examines three ways in which the Spanish imperfect and preterite are theoretically conceptualized and how such conceptions are realized practically in elementary Spanish textbooks. An attempt is made to present the three approaches as constituting a theoretical progression rather than viewing them as isolated treatments of the same…

Three groups of adult second language learners were administered written tests of their knowledge of the grammar, morphology, and/or phonology of the second language. The tests were designed to distinguish between recognition of correctness based on knowledge of rules and recognition based on intuitive familiarity with the language. In the first…

THIS PAPER DISCUSSES THE SELECTION OF A PEDAGOGICAL NORM FOR FRENCH INTERROGATIVE STRUCTURES. SINCE THIS AREA OF FRENCH GRAMMAR IS PARTICULARLY POLYMORPHOUS, OBJECTIVE CRITERIA ARE SET UP TO MAKE THE SELECTION--FREQUENCY, COMPLEXITY, AND EXTENSIVITY. BECAUSE "EST-CE QUE" CAN BE APPLIED WITHOUT EXCEPTION TO ALL TYPES OF KERNEL SENTENCES, IT WAS…

THIS PAPER DISCUSSES THE THEORY THAT CONTENT ANALYSIS OF MESSAGES IS A CONTRAL TOPIC IN ALL SCIENCES DEALING WITH MAN. CONTENT ANALYSIS IS THE DETERMINATION OF CHARACTERISTICS OF A SOURCE FROM THE NATURAL LANGUAGE UTTERANCES IT EMITS. ASSIGNING PROPERTIES TO WORDS AND THEN COUNTING THE APPEARANCES OF THE PROPERTIES IS INSUFFICIENT--THE CONTENT OF…

THE PURPOSES OF THIS EXPERIMENT CONDUCTED IN THE TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA PUBLIC SCHOOLS WERE (1) TO STUDY DIFFERENCES IN SENTENCE STRUCTURES AMONG STUDENTS VARYING IN CHRONOLOGICAL MATURITY AND MENTAL ABILITY WITHIN GRADES 4, 6, 8, 10, AND 12, AND (2) TO SEE IF AN INSTRUMENT COULD BE DEVISED TO EFFICIENTLY MEASURE SYNTACTIC MATURITY. THE INSTRUMENT…

On the basis of a study of the language of 22 black children in a rural county of northern Florida, the author states that apart from geographical dialects, there are two "genera" of English: Black (BE) and White (WE). Within each of these genera there are two varieties: Educated and Uneducated. These are further defined by…

Any theory of stylistics sets itself the task of accounting for choices made by a speaker/writer among theoretically available and more-or-less equivalent linguistic structures. This task is a stumbling-block in the way of most attempts to construct a theory of style because there is no consistent method of defining 'available structures' and…

There is a set of difficult Spanish grammar questions (ser-estar, preterite-imperfect, subjunctive-indicative, word order, and prepositions) in which the description of the semantic component is essential. Even though generative formulations treat them in differing ways, these questions possess the common characteristic of associating a form…