Previous research has shown how macro-structures can affect children's verbalizations. This study focuses on whether conversational contexts of forms are learned along with syntax, on what makes syntax, and on how to predict speech. Transcripts of videotapes of young children provided a matrix of function or act against actual utterance, wherein…

Sixty-five grade 5-6 children were tested on a verbal recall task involving material of varying semantic and syntactic content. There was no difference between best and poorest readers in their performance on random lists of words, but there were clear differences on meaningful sentences and on syntactically well-formed but semantically anomalous…

This selective bibliography is divided into two main sections. The first deals with Arabic-English contrastive studies and lists 5 books, or sections in books, and 16 journal articles. The second section deals with error analysis for Arabic speakers learning English and lists 3 journal articles. The entries range in date from 1959 to 1975. The…

Examples of the spontaneous speech in French of native English speakers, average age 7.6 years, were collected at the end of their second year in a French immersion program. Results show that the native language strongly influences second language speech production. While vocabulary and pronunciation are of course predominantly French, the…

This is a contrastive analysis of English and Modern Literary Arabic. Part one deals with phonology, including suprasegmentals and orthography. Part two deals with morphology, part three with sentence structure, part four with verb phrases, and part five with noun phrases. These sections emphasize structures that present problems to the…

Four tests--PPVT, ITPA, MRT, WPPSI--commonly used to measure language development in young children are evaluated by four criteria: (1) what development aspects do they claim to tap; (2) what do they actually tap; (3) what linguistic knowledge is presupposed; (4) what special problems face a non-standard English speaker. These tests are considered…

This publication reviews significant research in 1969 in the field of oral language in early childhood and reading. In general the paper discusses only those areas where these three topics intersect; thus detailed treatment is given only to language in early childhood education and language in relation to reading. Initial comments deal with…

A linguistic study of syntactic differences in the mass noun-count noun contrast in French and English reveals the problems encountered in the construction of illustrative sentences and other pattern drills. A definitional statement of the distinctions between the two classes of nouns includes numerous examples in both languages. By taking…

The distinction between artifact and tool is introduced into the study of language diversity and the posting of linguistic universals. A complicating factor in all language investigations is the use of language as the chief tool to create new language. Analogy and metaphor are considered as two major creative forces at work in all languages.…

"How does a child come to be able to relate his own experience to the formal means of communicating about that experience in the language to which he is exposed?" The author maintains that the innate predispositions that underlie the development of the cognitive ability to organize and structure experience also underlie the acquisition of the…

The Oral Language Program for which this document serves as a teacher's manual is a set of 147 daily lessons designed to help five- to seven-year-old children who do not speak English or who speak dialects of English that offer significant structural competition with the standard dialects. The manual provides a guide to the lessons, explaining…

Some insight into the relationship between language and thought can be achieved through a comparison between American Sign Language and English. This paper discusses several studies on this topic and defines some of the problems. The author feels that the deaf using American Sign Language cannot be considered linguistically deficient. A structural…

This first part of a four-part report of research on the development of a computerized, phrase-structure grammar of modern Hebrew presents evidence to demonstrate the need for material to train teachers of Semitic languagues in the theory of grammar. It then provides a discussion of the research already done on the application of computational…

This study tests three aspects of the problem of validity of contrastive analysis as a means for predicting errors or problems for second language learners: the constancy of foreign-language errors, the objectivity of the methods and procedures of contrastive analysis, and the capacity of contrastive analysis to make accurate predictions. Japanese…

The system described in this report is designed for use as a computational tool that allows a linguist to develop and study methods for generating surface strings from an underlying semantic structure. Initial findings with regard to form-determiners (such as voice, form, tense, and mood), some rules for embedding sentences, and some attention to…