This study investigates whether advanced second language (L2) learners of a nonnull subject language (Dutch) are influenced by their null subject first language (L1) (Turkish) in their offline and online resolution of subject pronouns in L2 discourse. To tease apart potential L1 effects from possible general L2 processing effects, we also tested a…

The objective of this investigation was to analyze rhetorical strategies of Alice Walker in four narratives, namely, "The Color Purple, In Search of Our Mother's Gardens, Possessing the Secret of Joy, and Now Is the Time To Open Your Heart". As such, this study helps to expand the body of investigation relating linguistics to literature and medium…

This dissertation uses the generative framework to study the syntax and pragmatics of word order variation in the Andean Spanish of Bolivia and Ecuador. While Standard Spanish has basic order SVO, in Andean Spanish the object frequently appears in preverbal position, resulting in alternative orders (e.g. OVS). Previous studies have attributed this…

Research suggests that characteristics of EFL input cause morphosyntactic features to be acquired in an order dissimilar to that found in ESL contexts. To determine whether acquisition order for Korean learners could be explained by characteristics of their EFL input, a Korean elementary school curriculum was analyzed. Morphosyntactic features…

This paper examines the syntax of "GENDER CONCORD" in mixed utterances where bilingual children switch between a modifier in one language and a noun in another. Particular attention is paid to how children deal with potential gender mismatches between modifier and noun, i.e., if one of the languages has grammatical gender but the other does not,…

A notable difference between signed and spoken languages is the use of nonmanual linguistic signals that co-occur with the production of signs. These nonmanual signals involve primarily the face and upper torso and are an important feature of American Sign Language (ASL). They include grammatical markers that indicate syntactic categories such as…

In light of the ongoing attention to standards-based education in U.S. schools and the concern over how to effectively develop literacy skills in a first, let alone a second, language, this article reports on the drafting of the K-16 Student Standards for Learning Esperanto in the United States. Esperanto is ideally suited to aid children in the…

Arguments and examples are given to show that there are neither syntactic nor semantic justifications for a separation of the Spanish subjunctive into two types. (KM)

Article omission is known to be a feature of early grammar, although it does not affect all child languages to the same extent. In this article we analyze the production of articles by 12 children, 4 speakers of Catalan, 4 speakers of Italian, and 4 speakers of Dutch. We consider the results in the light of (i) the adult input the children are…

Describes and analyzes in detail the form and function of the English construction "as + participle", called the participle construction of characterization, or PCC. (EKN)

The author suggests the addition of the word "dared" to Harold Palmer's original list of anomalous finites. (CHK)

In this paper, we investigate the ability of Dutch agrammatic Broca's and Wernicke's aphasics to assign reference to possessive pronouns in elided VP constructions. The assumption is that the comprehension problems in these two populations have different sources that are revealed in distinct patterns of responses. The focus is primarily on the…

This study examines the comprehension patterns of various sentence types by Mandarin-speaking aphasic patients and evaluates the validity of the predictions from the Trace-Deletion Hypothesis (TDH) and the Double Dependency Hypothesis (DDH). Like English, the canonical word order in Mandarin is SVO, but the two languages differ in that the head…

English words may be divided conveniently into three categories: (1) those with a single root or base; (2) those with two bases; and (3) those which derive from syntactic structures. (Examples of words in the third category, which is the subject of this paper, are "off-the-record,""fly-by-night,""do-or-die.")…