The effects of intonation morphemes on the processing of simple reversible sentences containing a dislocated element were studied using synthetic speech stimuli. Both child and adult subjects processed the sentences better when they retained standard subject-verb-object order, suggesting that the morphemes serve as processing instructions.…

The function of word order is examined in light of interference in the learning of English discourse by Chinese speakers and vice versa. Emphasis on different devices in coding discourse functions is shown to be reflected in interference between the two languages. (13 references) (LB)

Topical structure analysis of English-as-a-Second-Language essay tests identified two topical structure variables, proportions of sequential and parallel topics in the essays, that differentiated the highest-rated essays from the lower-rated essays. (46 references) (Author/CB)

Argues for a fundamental structural similarity between serial verb constructions, widely known from Kwa languages, and v-v compounds in Japanese. A major theoretical implication of the analysis is that it supports an analysis of clausal structure where the external argument is not included in the immediate projection of a verb but is introduced by…

Examines knowledge of semantics-syntax correspondences in second-language acquisition (SLA) within the Principles and Parameters framework. A parameter of semantic structure is used to investigate change of state locatives and "psychological" verbs. Results indicate that for some learners, first-language influence persists until advanced stages of…

Argues that early French relative clauses (RCs) with gaps involve movement of the relative head. The article suggests that children lack relative operators for maturational reasons. This account shows that the deviation of early RCs from adult grammar is due to this lacuna and is compensated for in a manner consistent with Universal Grammar. (39…

Presents an intelligent computer-assisted language instruction (CALI) system called "Nihongo-CALI" (Japanese Computer Assisted Language Instruction), which employs natural language processing to provide immediate, grammatically sophisticated feedback to students in an interactive environment. The study compares the efficacy of this type…

Investigated whether the methodologies of explicit and implicit language instruction account for differences in the identification of grammatically well-formed sentences for college students of Spanish. Results showed that students receiving implicit instruction scored significantly higher in a grammaticality judgment test than those receiving…

This paper reports the results of a dual-task experiment which investigates the nature of working memory resources used in sentence comprehension. Participants read sentences of varying syntactic complexity (containing subject-and object-extracted relative clauses) while remembering one or three nouns (similar to or dissimilar from the…

This article reports on the results of two international systematic research reviews which focus on different aspects of teaching grammar to improve the quality and accuracy of 5-16-year-olds' writing in English. The results show that there is little evidence to indicate that the teaching of formal grammar is effective; and that teaching…

The author provides information on how science teachers can write science literacy objectives that help English language learners (ELLs) develop the scientific literacy needed for academic success in the science classroom. The article offers suggestions on how teachers can determine the vocabulary, language functions, and sentence structures that…

This paper reports results from a self-paced reading study in Chinese that demonstrates that object-extracted relative clause structures are less complex than corresponding subject-extracted structures. These results contrast with results from processing other Subject-Verb-Object languages like English, in which object-extracted structures are…

All languages rely to some extent on word order to signal relational information. Why? We address this question by exploring communicative and cognitive factors that could lead to a reliance on word order. In Study 1, adults were asked to describe scenes to another using their hands and not their mouths. The question was whether this home-made…

As a new faculty member, the author was invited by colleagues to help protect a resource they believed was essential to their instructional program. The importance of teaching grammar in a didactic fashion as a precursor to student writing constituted an unchallenged belief in the department. Faculty members were committed to the notion that…

This paper reports on an investigation about the relation between a student's conscious awareness of the structure of a sentence and the degree of his/her intonation accuracy as well as his/her reading comprehension. The research was done based on the hypothesis that: "if the students are made conscious of the infrastructure of lengthy…