Arguments for the introduction of an adverbial node label (ADV) in transformational grammar are examined and rejected. The following question is raised: Is a node label ADV necessary, or can the phenomena associated with adverbials be explained in terms of the set of node labels used to explain other areas of grammar? The author argues that a new…

The class of English words traditionally called adverbs is examined and redefined in this paper. The following three subclasses of adverbs are identified: limiters, which are words that modify noun phrases; intensifiers, which are words that modify adjectives; and "true" adverbs, which modify verb phrases and sentences. Examples of these…

An account of the phenomena that transformational syntax handled by means of "raising" is formulated in the context of cognitive grammar. Raising is analyzed as a special case of the metonymy that relational expressions exhibit in regard to their choice of overtly coded arguments. The transparency of these constructions is explained. (83…

The relationships between a child's perceptual space and the acquisition of language are discussed in light of the work of Clark, Fillmore, and Chafe. Early language is analyzed as a semantic structure where linguistic ties are established between semantic features and inherent and relational perceptual features. Of these, it is the relational…

This paper is a tentative description of several processes of complex sentence building in Bahasa Malaysia. Several types of embedding and conjoining are described, and some transformational rules are proposed whereby these are accomplished. Two informants, one from Selangor State and the other from Malacca State, were used for the study.…

This study reflects the author's efforts to synthesize ideas drawn from various linguistic theorists, especially Schlesinger, Chomsky, and Fillmore. The first section gives the theoretical background for the study. The second section discusses roles, relations, and constructs. The final section discusses the applications of the study to teaching…

Zwicky's analysis of syntactic notions as possible candidates for "head," based on constituent-structure theory, is discussed in detail. This analysis is contrasted with the results gained form one provided in a dependency-based theory in which "head" is the name of a grammatical relation category. (Author/LMO)

Three linguistic theories (the creolist, the transformationalist, and the ethnolinguistic) of the origin and historical development of Ebonics in America are examined. (Author/MC)

In this essay, the cross cultural conflicts associated with linguistic problems are explored in terms of the development of linguistic theory from 1933 to the present. The linguistic code, positivism, the existential approach to sociolinguistics, linguistic solidarity, defining the situation, language and culture, and cross-cultural conflicts in…

In this essay, the relationship of American linguistic theory to teaching English as a second language (ESL) is traced over the past few decades. The limitations of the structuralist paradigm in a language learning situation are discussed. The use of pattern drills based on the structuralist surface feature attention to word placement. The…

To express that a degree of one event is conditioned by (or paralleled by) a degree of another, the "the...the..." construction with a comparative after each "the" is used. Examples include sentences such as: (1) the more dangerous mountains are to climb, the more challenging they are; (2) the more often a man has been in…

In early transformational generative grammar, it was assumed that all semantic interpretation would be done off deep structure, but with the proposals for the extended standard theory (EST) of Chomsky (1968, 1972) came the realization that certain aspects of semantic interpretation, such as focus and presuppostion and scope of quantifiers, must be…

In this paper, non-standard types of agreement are examined. Such agreement types are those in which two or more supposedly agreeing categories show discord rather than concord. For example, if a language has noun-adjective agreement, there may, under limited circumstances, be non-standard agreement where the subject is plural and the agreeing…

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the process of coordination reduction in various languages and to propose a universal set of rules that will account for all types of coordination reduction. In a brief discussion of some of the more recent proposals on coordination reduction it will be shown that these proposals fail to account for the…

Together with a study of object complements, a succinct description of the Malay classifier construction is given. Object complementation is studied in a generative-transformational framework. For sentence object complements, four types of surface structure are proposed, but it is claimed that two types of deep structure trees underlie the…