THIS IS THE FIRST MAJOR SECTION OF A CHAPTER PREPARED FOR "THE MANUAL OF CHILD PSYCHOLOGY," P.H. MUSSEN, EDITOR, IN PREPARATION. IT IS AN INTRODUCTION TO TRANSFORMATIONAL GRAMMAR WRITTEN FOR PSYCHOLOGISTS AND PRESENTS SOME OF THE MAJOR IDEAS THAT HAVE BEEN DEVELOPED IN MODERN LINGUISTIC THEORY, ALONG WITH CERTAIN OF THEIR PSYCHOLOGICAL…

Presents an outline for a theory of syntax acquisition, surveys other approaches to language acquisition, and addresses the following methodological issues: (1) the relevance of linguistic theory to the model; (2) how the model is tested; and (3) the domain of the theory. (Author/AM)

Data on the complexity of relative clause formation in children indicate that right embedding precedes central embedding in development. Previous research on the subject argues that configurations where coreferential NP's function as subjects are less complex than configurations where coreferential NP's function as objects. It appears that the…

The syntactic properties of the child's language are studied. Within the framework of transformational grammar, the rules of syntax can be divided into three types: base- or phrase-structure rules, transformational rules, and morphological rules. Each of these rules is discussed. It is stated that the one process that appears to characterize each…

THE FREQUENCY OF 'ASPECT' (PERFECT AND PROGRESSIVE IN THE AUXILIARY) WAS REPORTED FOR RETARDED, NORMAL, AND SUPERIOR CHILDREN ACROSS AGE AND THE ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE MODALITIES. DATA WERE LIMITED IN SEVERAL RESPECTS, PARTICULARLY SIZE OF SAMPLE. THIS IS A PILOT STUDY RATHER THAN A SERIOUS EFFORT TO UNDERSTAND PROCESSES OF LANGUAGE…

The development of sentence coordination in children using sentences conjoined by "and" was studied to test the adequacy of the transformationally based derivational theory of complexity. Two cross-sectional experiments were conducted using 18 sentence types with children between the ages of three and five. One experiment used an elicited…

This study considers the interaction of syntactic and pragmatic factors (social and cognitive) in children's production of coordinate structures involving conjunction reduction. Two aspects of pragmatic context were considered: (1) the pattern of uncertainty or redundancy in a complex action sequence, and (2) the perceptual grouping of objects…

It is possible to examine the development of English wh-questions in first and second language learners and to detect regularities in the order of emergence of certain linguistic structures. It is also possible to speculate whether the stages in language acquisition correspond to the transformational derivation in transformational grammar. The…

An introductory statement notes the increased interest in the fields of communication theory, linguistics, and psycholinguistics during the period 1953-57 and suggests reasons for this attention. The body of the article summarizes and comments upon some of the relevant literature published since 1953 in these three interrelated areas, limiting the…

This dissertation is an attempt to characterize the notion "exception to a rule of grammar" within the context of Chomsky's conception of grammar as given in "Aspects of the Theory of Syntax." This notion depends on a prior notion of "rule government"--in each phrase marker on which a transformational rule may…

This volume is a collection of articles on various aspects of applied linguistics as it relates to language teaching. Chapter 1, by S. Pit Corder, entitled "Applied Linguistics and Language Teaching," gives a short, general survey of applied linguistics in language teaching. Chapters 2-5 give an account of the main concepts in what is now called…