This document contains three reports in prepublication form on research conducted by linguists at the University of Colorado. The first paper presents an argument against the theories concerning the concept of the distributional syllable. Such theories are based on the assumptions that the syllable can and should be defined formally, without…

Within the realm of psycholinguistics there is a need to investigate linguistic performance based on the generative transformational concept of linguistic competence, i.e., based on the speaker-listener's knowledge of his language. Psycholinguistics must determine how underlying knowledge is related to overt performance. The nominalization and…

Fifty-five structures of the Chinese language are described and their particular usage patterns are discussed for the use of teachers, linguists, and advanced students of Chinese. Each structure is listed by its major structural element(s), its grammatical element(s), or a combination of the two. The examination of each structure consists of an…

The question is addressed whether a child would develop a communication system if a conventional linguistic model is absent. Six congenitally deaf children, who were not exposed to Sign Language, were observed and videotaped at play in their homes at intervals of one to three months. The children ranged in age from 1 year, 5 months to 4 years, 1…

This comparative study of traditional and transformational approaches to the syntax of standard Russian proposes the superiority of analysis in terms of possible and impossible transformations, thereby revealing the existence of a level of linguistic form superior to that of simple morphophonemic description. Five classes of word-combinations of…

The author feels that there is no reason to suppose that adults are less capable than children in learning a second language, given adequate opportunity and motivation. In terms of amount learned in comparable time, the adult is about five times as efficient as the child. This is what would be expected of any other kind of intellectual or rational…

This paper is concerned with the syntactic problems raised by the grammatical phenomenon in Japanese that is called here the "complementizer." In the types of sentences under consideration here, S2 is a nominal clause. Such a clause acts as a noun phrase adjunct to the verb in S1. The noun clauses in question are often followed by a…

Following a brief summary of Trubetzkoy's views of Russian word roots, a statistical analysis is performed on a short literary passage in seeking to examine whether all types of roots merely coexist in modern Russian or whether there is an expansion of certain types and a contraction of others. Results point out statistical and semantic…

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.…

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)

This paper discusses subject-verb-complement (SVC) clauses and their renderings in English and Finnish. Comparisons are made on the level of surface structure and with regard to equivalence in the sense of one construction being an optimum translation of the other. The definition of congruence, i.e., formal similarity and equal number of…

This grammar presents a comprehensive, structural treatment of Russian. Intended primarily for students of Russian and Slavistics as a textbook or manual for use in a course on Russian linguistic structure, it also serves as a reference grammar based on the principles of structural linguistics. The three major sections consider the sound system,…

In line with current thinking in transformational grammar, syntax as a system can and should be studied before a study is made of the use of that system. Chomsky's lexical redundancy rule is an area for further study, possibly to come closer to defining and achieving explanatory adequacy. If it is observed that English nouns come in two types,…

On the basis of experimental data, the author makes the following observations: (1) the basic encoding processes in speech, the schemas of order, first produce elementary underlying sentences; (2) underlying sentence structure is the controlling step in the organization of speech; (3) underlying sentence structure plays a central role in…

This paper examines certain of the cues to surface constituency that are salient to children in the comprehension of syntactic structure. Accessibility is studied through a set of experiments requiring seven-year-old children to repeat certain syntactic constituents. These children can correctly identify subjects and also predicate phrases with…