The properties of "do", its distribution and meaning, are discussed. "Do" is one of the most common error-zones for Indian learners of English. Two analyses of "do" which account for the distribution and meaning of this element are presented. According to the transformational approach, "do" is introduced in…

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…

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…

Constraining linguistic metatheory by demanding that it allow the construction of grammars for all the frequently occurring idiolects of standard American English is shown to narrow the choices among competing theoretical positions. In this way data from a nonhomogeneous speech community are used to illuminate rather than cloud a theoretical…

The syntactic relationship between the quantifier and the noun phrase (NP) and the function of the quantifier in the sentence are studied. In the first part of the paper, the theories of several linguists concerning the structure of the NP that includes a quantifier are reviewed. In parts 2 and 3 a syntactic description of the quantifier is…

The present volume is intended as an introductory textbook in field analysis of unstudied languages. Chapters discuss (1) language and sound systems; (2) taxonomy and its uses; (3) characterization and breath, rhythmic, syllabic, and phonetic segments; (4) frames; (5) segments; (6) discrimination; (7) classification; (8) matching; and (9)…

A set of procedures for testing hypotheses about the syntactic structure of natural languages has been developed for use on-line with computer display consoles. The procedures were designed in the context of Chomsky's transformational generative grammar. A linguist can construct phrase structure trees, selecting with the lightgun from alternative…

The justification for the Chomsky-Halle Auxiliary Reduction Rule III, called Pretonic Stress Placement (PSP), is questioned from the point of view of the native speaker. The similarity of the PSP and the Main Stress Rule (MSR) is examined through the application of these rules to polysyllabic monomorphemic and polymorphemic words. This analysis is…

Proposes a reexamination of the ellipsis within the framework of discourse grammar, as opposed to a grammar of sentence structure. (AM)

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…

This paper examines the status of surface structure in transformational grammar, and the way that surface structure mediates the contacts between the phonological and semantic components of the grammar. Surface structure refers not to a single but to at least four distinct notions that do not necessarily define a homogeneous level of…

The divisions in transformational grammar into surface and deep structure give rise to the hypothesis that imitative-repetitive drills will never go beyond the surface structure, and that an explicit verbalization of underlying structures will result in better achievement and proficiency in second language learning. The Project described here,…

It is possible to apply the concept of surface-structure constraint to a particular area of Hungarian syntax. A surface-structure constraint, according to David Perlmutter, can be seen as a template which serves as a filter at some level after the transformational component. In the case of Hungarian cooccurrence of noun phrases and verbs in a…