In this report data are presented that challenge the difficulty ordering for anaphoric syntax (e. g., pronouns) proposed by Bormuth, Manning, Carr, and Pearson in 1970. It is suggested that any such difficulty ordering resulting from tests of the form proposed by Bormuth (1970) will have uncontrolled variability due to semantic factors that have…

Children's pronunciations of vowel clusters in synthetic words were analyzed in relation to common English words containing the same vowel clusters. Subjects were 436 elementary-school students of both high and low reading levels from a suburban, an urban, and a rural community. Independent variables were grade level, sex, reading level, community…

Children's pronunciations of vowel clusters in synthetic words were analyzed in relation to common English words containing the same vowel clusters. Subjects were 436 elementary students of both high and low reading levels from a suburban, an urban, and a rural community. Conclusions of the study, reported in Part 2, were (1) pronunciations more…

Children's pronunciations of vowel clusters in synthetic words were analyzed in relation to common English words containing the same vowel clusters. Subjects were 436 elementary students of both high and low reading levels from a suburban, an urban, and a rural community. Discussion of the problem and procedures of the study are found in Part 1,…

Whether linguistics is a scientific study is reviewed in the light of what linguists actually do professionally. Personal anecdotes illustrate the linguist's view of speech as the dominant language force and language as the vehicle of social interaction and communication. The work of George K. Zipf is commented on, and Morris Bishop's poem "The…

Previous studies of language have indicated that various qualifier words (e.g., I know that, probably) attached to statements represent differing degrees of belief in the statements. Nine qualifiers were studied which represent 3 degrees of probability and 3 forms of wording: "certainly, it is certain, I know, Probably, it is likely, I believe,…

This paper investigates restrictions on three types of noun-phrase complements (gerundive, infinitive, clause) in English and seeks to point out some parallels between the occurrence of these three types in object positions. The author first presents a list of verbs which may be followed by noun-phrase complements; he then considers the occurrence…

In order to calibrate a vocabulary base which might be utilized in preparing materials for reading instruction at the elementary level, the 1000 most frequently used words in the preschooler's vocabulary provided the experimental data for several studies: (1) a series of free-recall experiments which yielded a scaling of common words according to…

The discussion of Spanish verbs considers the problems of tense and aspect. Two tenses are used in the description: past and non-past. The past tense is considered the marked member and the non-past the unmarked member. Aspect is considered in terms of "telic" verbs which express an action tending towards a goal, and "atelic" verbs which do not…

THIS STUDY FOCUSED ON THE GENERAL PROBLEM OF HOW THE TOTAL EFFECT OF A MULTIDIMENSIONAL STIMULUS IS COMPOUNDED FROM THE SIMPLE EFFECT OF ITS SEPARATE COMPONENTS IN THE CONTEXT OF STIMULUS GENERALIZATION. FROM A THEORETICAL LEVEL, THE PROBLEM WAS STUDIED IN TERMS OF THE GEOMETRY OF MINKOWSKI. AN EXPERIMENT WAS CARRIED OUT WITH 20 SUBJECTS WHO WERE…

AN ATTEMPT WAS MADE TO ESTABLISH CERTAIN BASE RATES IN LANGUAGE USAGE OF CHILDREN AND TO INVESTIGATE THEIR PSYCHOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE. SPECIFICALLY THE STUDY WAS AIMED AT DISCOVERING WHETHER THE FINDINGS OF G.K. ZIPF (1965) HELD FOR SPOKEN LANGUAGE OF CHILDREN AND WHETHER AGE DIFFERENCES INFLUENCED THE RELATIONSHIP OF VARIETY AND FREQUENCY OF WORD…

THE SEMANTIC ANALYSIS OF DELUSIONAL CONCEPTS IN THE INTERVIEW LANGUAGE OF PSYCHOTIC PATIENT IS DESCRIBED. THE TECHNIQUE IS BASED ON THE SEMANTIC DIFFERENTIAL DEVISED BY OSGOOD, SUCI, AND TANNENBAUM. COMPUTATIONAL PROCEDURES ARE USED FOR THE DETECTION OF CLUSTERS OF KEYWORDS. THESE CLUSTERS PROVIDE A "NATURAL" CLASSIFICATION OF PEOPLE AND…

THE PARTICIPANTS IN THE CONFERENCE ON LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT IN DISADVANTAGED CHILDREN AGREED THAT THE BASIC LANGUAGE GOAL FOR DISADVANTAGED CHILDREN SHOULD BE LITERACY IN STANDARD ENGLISH SO THAT THEY WILL BECOME EMPLOYABLE. THEY ALSO FELT THAT ATTENTION SHOULD BE GIVEN TO HOW LIMITED LANGUAGE USAGE CONSTRAINS THE CHILDREN'S INTELLECTUAL…

A STRUCTURAL APPROACH TO THE COGNITIVE ANALYSIS OF LANGUAGE WAS PRESENTED IN THIS RESEARCH ON THE LANGUAGE AND CULTURE OF THE PAPAGO INDIANS OF ARIZONA. IN THIS STUDY, THE COGNITIVE PATTERNS OF A LANGUAGE WERE CALLED "THEMES OF THE LANGUAGE" AND THE COGNITIVE PATTERNS OF NONVERBAL CULTURE WERE CALLED "THEMES OF THE CULTURE."…

A sample of 90 children drawn from kindergarten, second grade, and fourth grade participated in a study of ability to decode ambiguous and unambiguous verbal messages. Subjects were read 12 message stems, each followed by a question pertaining to the contents of the stem. For half of the messages, the meaning of the questions was unambiguous; for…