Generative semantics is (or perhaps was) a research program within linguistics, initiated by the work of George Lakoff, John R. Ross, Paul Postal and later McCawley. The approach developed out of transformational generative grammar in the mid 1960s, but stood largely in opposition to work by Noam Chomsky and his students. The nature and genesis of…

This paper introduces the Government-Binding Theory of grammar and offers examples of the theory's use in areas of language development, child language disorders, and adult aphasia. Discussed are the levels of representation of Universal Grammar, subtheories that constrain the representations at each level, parameter setting, core grammar, and…

Discussion of methodologies for the semantic integration of databases focuses on formalizing the notion of schema equivalence and the schema integration process. Topics include common data model; the Entity-Relationship (ER)model; transformation of ER models; transformational, mapping, and behavioral schema equivalence; and knowledge-based…

Focuses on theories concerning the origin of language. The article indicates that the language-origins theories most favored in contemporary science all have their roots in the intellectual preoccupations of the early scientists and philosophers of the European Enlightenment. The article concludes that the origin of language myth reveals itself as…

Television is of limited value to hearing-impaired children, who cannot benefit from the soundtrack. Traditional caption writing techniques, which involve editing of the audio track, have been based primarily on the captioner's empirical knowledge and intuition and aim the captions at a presumed average language and reading ability of the target…