An investigation of the relationship between a speaker's decision to treat portions of the information in a sentence as given or new and the syntactic form of the sentence produced. A tendency of English speakers to use alternative surface structure rules to present given information before new information is demonstrated. (AMH)

A sentence-reading procedure was used to study the influence of syntactic structure on the timing of syllables in speech production. The study was designed to test whether syllable lengthening might be sensitive to the distinction between surface and underlying structure. (Author/RM)

A study to determine the degrees of mastery by middle-class second grade children of seventeen syntactic competencies and to compare their oral and written syntactic attainment. (DD)

Discusses experiments that investigated the sources of knowledge that are employed in spoken word identification. The interactive assumption that normal spoken word identification processes require the presence of semantic and syntactic context and the special status given to word-initial acoustic-phonetic information in cohort theory were…

Reviews research on the use of the "T-Unit" as a measure of language ability, demonstrating that the measure has limited utility in the case of second language, since it bases itself solely on syntax and does not reward speakers for sophistication in such areas as vocabulary. (Author/CB)

Presents a framework for expressing how choices are made in systemic grammars. Framework represents grammar as combination of systemic syntactic description and explicit choice processes called "choice experts." (DF)

Discusses the English grammar rule of backshifting in reported speech, that after a past tense reporting verb the reported verb is backshifted. However, backshifting need not always take place. Examination of numerous examples indicates that the past is the unmarked form; the unbackshifted present is marked, as is the past perfect. (SED)

Expands upon a previous study of the gender of Spanish nouns which indicated that feminine gender nouns typically end in unstressed -is, while other -s words are presumed masculine, with the most common masculine gender markers being -l, -o, -n, -e, and -r. (SL)

Proposes a model of syntax in which marked structures are conceived as the realization of modes of control that regulate the informational flow of the text at points of threatened discontinuity. Describes two of these modes, found in children's writing, which are concerned with relations of logic and focus. (Author/SED)

Examines whether specific characteristics of American Sign Language (ASL) syntax affect perceptual processing of the language. Findings support the psychological reality of sentence embedding processes in ASL, further supporting the claim that visually based languages achieve the same functional goals as speech, although with different means. (FL)

This article proposes a description of Spanish conjunctions based on functional and structural criteria, and attempts to present a taxonomy of the different functions of conjunctions. (Text is in Spanish.) (CLK)

The report of research on English grammar argues that the intransitive resultative construction requires head-movement of the secondary predicate to the main predicate in order to assign the theta-role to the postverbal NP in LF. Then, this construction is taken as an instance in which theta-role assignment is derivational, supporting the findings…

The aim of this paper is to describe verbal complementation in Malagasy and to consider how the Malagasy data reflect the "binding hierarchy" proposed by Givon (1980). It is shown that the Malagasy data provide support for the hierarchy and that the occurrence of the complementizer "fa" can be accounted for in terms of the strength of binding the…

Research supported by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health. (DD)

Part of a dissertation, Stanford University; research supported in part by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health. (DD)