Spanish-speaking (SS) children with language impairment (LI) present with deficits in morphology and verb argument structure. These language areas may be useful for clinical identification of affected children. This study aimed to evaluate the discrimination accuracy of spontaneous language measures with SS preschoolers to tease out what…

The book is a typological study of grammatical roles, such as agent, patient, beneficiary, and of grammatical relations, such as subject (direct) and indirect object. In addition it is concerned with the devices, such as the passive, that alter the identities in such roles and relations. Its objective is to suggest a consistent and reasonably…

Examines German idiomatic predicate constructions in various aspects; finds that these constructions do not form a homogeneous class, either as to form or as to syntax. Numerous examples, taken from dictionaries and other sources, are used. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

A set of rules is given generating those temporal clauses in English whose sources are sentences embedded in the adverbial position by means of relativization. See FL 508 197 for availability. (Author/RM)

This article discusses two syntactic processes known as chaining and linkage, insofar as they are relevant to Chuave, a Papuan language spoken in the East New Guinea Highlands. These processes are discussed in relation to Chuave medial verbs. (CLK)

Traditional Latin word classes are seen in relation to modern grammatical theory. (Text is in French.) (PMP)

This article discusses the relationship between the linguistic description of language and the speaker's acquisition and use of language, with specific reference to the role of paradigmatic and syntagmatic relationships in the acquisition of definition as a linguistic behavior. (Text is in French.) (AM)

Analysis of examples of abstract and concrete nouns reveals that pluralization in Spanish is a complex phenomenon from the semantic point of view. The number of abstract negative nouns being pluralized far outweighs that of their positive counterparts. Syntactic pluralization of abstracts implies a semantic change, and sometimes the pluralization…

In translating perception into written language, a child must learn an encoding process which is a continuation of the process of improving sensing of the world around him or her. To verbalize an object (a perception) we use frames which name a referent, locate the referent in space and time, identify its appearance and behavior, and define terms…

Criteria for defining individual members of the preposition word class are set forth. Arguments are presented against calling prepositions meaningless, yet it is conceded and explained that those which occur in wider contexts are vaguer due to their greater variability. The unitary, polysemous, and/or homonymous nature of prepositions are…

English tenses are discussed in terms of a unique ordering of three moments of time: the moment of speech, the moment of the event and the reference point. The aims of the paper are to: (1) show the usefulness of introducing the concept of reference point in tense analysis, (2) provide an account of how to construe reference points semantically,…

Two linguistic propositions provide the subject matter for this discussion. The first is that all nouns can serve as locatives. This is exemplified in the locative structure of Chinese nouns, mostly with the overt markers of locative suffixes, just as English nouns are used as such in the form of prepositional phrases, or as Japanese nouns are…

Bini, a language spoken by a million horticulturists in and around Benin City, Nigeria, belongs genealogically to the Edo branch of the Kwa family of the Niger-Congo phylum. Bini dialects differ in their tonemic inventory, which ranges from four to six tonemes per dialect. But all dialects exhibit two morphotonemes--high and low--which perhaps…

This study demonstrates that a property of verbs, implicit causality, is important in determining coreference of potentially ambiguous anaphoric pronouns in a timed comprehension task. Verbs were classified according to bias toward a noun phrase; pairs of sentences were constructed for each. Response time was faster for congruent sentences. (CHK)

Verb patterns are arranged into the five following groups: Intransitive, intensive, monotransitive, ditransitive, and complex transitive. Each type is explained and illustrated. (CHK)