The quality of redundancy in language usage can be examined to determine its effect on communication efficiency. Semiotic redundancy, defined as the quantity of prolixity between semantic and pragmatic information, has the potential of reducing equivocation and error and, at the optimal level, provides maximum communication efficiency. Thus,…

Regardless of the syntactic variation of the direct object "a" in Spanish, a great deal of semantic unity underlies its use. Argues that it carries an invariant meaning that is present in every use of the form, and, concomitantly, its absence before a direct object carries an equally invariant meaning within the systematic semantic structure of…

The acquisition of "to" in infinitive complement structure was examined in the spontaneous speech data from four children who were observed longitudinally from two to three years of age. Results support the conclusion that the verb system is a determining factor in the acquisition of linguistic structure. (SED)

Spatial relationships represented by po + dative case in Russian may be analyzed as underlying locations. The directionality sometimes present in po + dative sentences is due to the cooccurrence of the directional (determined) verb of motion and not to an underlying relation goal. (SL)

First part of a continued article. (SK)

Paper read at the Annual Meeting of the Modern Language Association of America, December 29, 1968, in New York, New York. (DS)

Discusses children's comprehension of complex sentences as measured by a picture selection test. Concludes that the interplay of both syntactic factors, such as active vs. passive, and nonsyntactic factors, such as expectation, must be considered in any characterization of children's sentence comprehension ability. (EKN)

Examines language frontier and transitional zones along the Belgium-northwestern France linguistic border as area occupying important position in linguistic contact research. Gives examples of variant forms in the morphosyntactic, semantic, stylistic, and lexical forms. (Author/BK)

Experiments were conducted to examine the influence of syntactic boundaries on the operation of a phonological rule in speech production. Results indicate that traditional metrics of boundary strength, as well as linguistic formulations of phonological rules, must be elaborated to recognize the special status of clause boundaries and deletion…

Presents experimental evidence supporting the assertion that successive single-word utterances share certain suprasegmental characteristics with multiple-word utterances and that they are therefore not single words but the first manifestation of syntax in speech. (AM)

Finds that phrasal verbs (verb-particle combinations, i.e. "speak up" and "get up") have received insufficient treatment in the literature of grammar. Proposes eight categories for phrasal verbs, grouped according to use. (IFS/WGA)

A model of language transfer is proposed. It examines the nature of language transfer, identifies which language phenomena are transferred, and predicts conditions for language transfer occurrence. The model includes notions of language universals, language distance, and surface language phenomena. (PMJ)