To what extent and in what specific ways ethnic background, particularly blingualism, relate to linguistic development is a matter of concern with respect to curriculum development and instruction. (Authors/MB)

The verbal behavior of three children was sampled. The samples were analyzed to obtain a picture of three stages of the children's language development, specifically the interrogative structures. Each stage was about 4- or 5-months long, starting at the 18th to 28th month, depending upon the child's level of linguistic ability. The interrogative…

Three papers from this issue of the Working Papers are provided here. "The Nesting Constraint in Child Language," by Patrick Alan Brogan, discusses a child's ability to perform complex, internally embedded sentences. It is hypothesized that difficulty stems from a child's limited short-term memory. "A Framework for Studying Kin Term…

THE ACQUISITION OF LANGUAGE IS CONSIDERED AS A QUESTION OF SPECIFYING HOW CHILDREN'S CAPACITY FOR LANGUAGE INTERACTS WITH THEIR LINGUISTIC EXPERIENCE--THE INTERACTION TAKING THE FORM OF RELATING THE UNIVERSAL ASPECTS OF THE DEEP STRUCTURE TO THE IDIOSYNCRATIC ASPECTS OF THE SURFACE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE. THIS INTERACTION OCCURS IN THE ACQUISITION…

THIS STUDY WAS MADE IN AN ATTEMPT TO DISCOVER HOW MUCH ENVIRONMENTAL STIMULATION IS NECESSARY FOR NORMAL LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT IN CHILDREN. THROUGH ANALYSIS OF TRANSFORMATIONAL GRAMMER, THE SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES OF TWENTY 5-YEAR-OLD CULTURALLY DEPRIVED NEGRO CHILDREN IN BALTIMORE WERE COMPARED TO THOSE OF A GROUP OF MIDDLE CLASS WHITE NURSERY SCHOOL…

Some aspects of a theory of grammar are presented which derive from a formal theory of language acquisition. One aspect of the theory is a universal constraint on analyzability known as the Freezing Principle, which supplants a variety of constraints proposed in the literature. A second aspect of the theory is the Invariance Principle, a…

The techniques of transformational grammar can be used effectively to identify and describe significant differences in the language competencies of children at several grade levels. The oral language responses of 150 elementary school children and 30 kindergartners (selected at random) to two silent, animated films of Aesop's "Fables" were…

This survey consists of eleven papers covering current topics within the realm of linguistic science. The papers are written by scholars in particular fields, and each one is followed by a list of references and critiques by other linguists. Current theories are discussed and reference is made to recent studies and writings. The areas of…

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…

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 project seeking to develop sound methodological research techniques for second-language is based on an initial pilot study which (1) identified and classifies the utterances of a child learning Spanish as a second language, and (2) determines whether there are any significant trends in the observed order of learning of kernels and transformed…

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…