Discusses the possessive constructions in English, in particular, the postponed construction. (An example of the postponed construction is "a book of John's," contrasted with "John's book," the preposed construction.) The study contrasts the possessive "of" with the "of" in other constructions and concludes…

The Spanish feminine article /el/, ordinarily the singular masculine definite article, has been used as evidence of the need for obligatory disagreement rules. Others explain the anamoly by means of referral rules. A third solution is suggested: an allomorphy rule which can be interpreted syntactically or phonologically. (LMO)

Examines some of the theoretical and practical objections to error analysis and proposes it would be more appropriate for teachers to lead students through the use of creative language exercises into the use of many of the possible sentences in a language. (HOD)

The author responds to issues raised in comments about a previous article, and defends his position of discussing Firthian insights from a generative point of view. (11 references) (CK)

Refutes the theory that indirect requests are ambiguous. Arguments for it are examined and an attempt is made to expose the weaknesses in the kinds of tests generally used to detect "illocutionary" ambiguity. An alternative analysis in the framework of semantics and the pragmatics of directive speech acts is suggested. (AMH)

Reviews the comments of Goldsmith on Firthian Prosodic Analysis (FPA) and its relationship with Autosegmental Phonology (AP). It is argued that AP has maintained the insights of FP while providing additional analytic possibilities. The authors examine Goldsmith's misinterpretations and clarifies the characteristics of FPA. (94 references) (CK)

Given that the principal bounding nodes, or barriers, for subjacency are noun phrase (NP), S, and S-bar, with S optionally a barrier, NP and S-bar obligatorily barriers, differences between Greek and English WH-movement are discussed. The contrasts are derived from independently motivated differences in NP structure between the two languages.…

Argues that children's OV utterances cannot be related transformationally to VO utterances because children initially acquire OV and VO with different sets of verbs, and also argues that L2 acquisition data can be accounted for within a model of L1 structural transfer, without requiring adult learner access to Universal Grammar. (Author/LMO)

Examines the idea of a mismatch between grammaticality and acceptability. Evidence is used to refute the claim that ungrammatical but acceptable sentences are theoretically plausible in the case of the sentence, "A not unhappy person entered the room." (AMH)

Data from responses to a grammaticality judgement test by 26 learners of English as a second language at two proficiency levels were used to investigate syntactic acquisition. Four syntactic structures were examined. Results suggest that less proficient subjects use syntactic strategies, while more proficient learners use semantic-based…

This paper focuses on the mechanism by which the successful learner acquires a second language. The author postulates a core language, the common core of the speaker's native and target languages, and states that the second language becomes an extension of this common core. Whatever language-specific features are added while acquiring the second…