This paper explores the issues involved in the linguistic characterisation of disordered discourse and the ways in which a Systemic Functional Linguistic framework addresses these issues. For many years, language disorders were described in terms of formal grammars, with "breakdown" discussed in terms of one or more of the traditional levels of…

Three experiments explored the semantics of the mass-count distinction in young children and adults. In Experiments 1 and 2, the quantity judgments of participants provided evidence that some mass nouns refer to individuals, as such. Participants judged one large portion of stuff to be ''more'' than three tiny portions for substance-mass nouns…

Purpose: This pilot study examined the extent and nature of associations in the linguistic complexity used by child and clinician within conversational interactions. Method: Correlation analyses focused on semantic and morphosyntactic language sample measures from an experienced speech-language clinician and 29 children with language impairment.…

The acquisition of new skills over a life span is a remarkable human ability. This ability, however, is constrained by age of acquisition (AoA); that is, the age at which learning occurs significantly affects the outcome. This is most clearly reflected in domains such as language, music, and athletics. This article provides a perspective on the…

Research in psychology and in linguistics has converged to suggest that the syntactic frames in which verbs appear carry meanings of their own, apart from the meaning of the verbs themselves. To date, however, a gap has existed between these two lines of research: Research in psychology has inferred the meanings of frames only indirectly; research…

This article reviews recent research on the second language acquisition of meaning with a view of establishing whether there is a critical period for the acquisition of compositional semantics. It is claimed that the functional lexicon presents the most formidable challenge, while syntax and phrasal semantics pose less difficulty to learners.…

Investigates the assumption that sentences comprise a presupposition and an assertion. The projection problem for presuppositions is reduced to a property of presuppositions; intersentential relations are systematized, dependent on presupposition and negation; certain syntactic structures and lexical items are analyzed in terms of these relations.…

A technique is demonstrated whereby an implicit semantic feature can be related to a grammatical alternative (pronoun-antecedent assignment) and thereby made explicit. It is also demonstrated that pragmatic, syntactic and other semantic features interact in an orderly way with this implicit feature of causality in verbs. (RC)

Polar interrogative sentences differ from declarative sentences in terms of illocutionary forces and the linguistic analysis of their meaning. It is possible to isolate small numbers of syntactic and semantic categories and an unlimited number of illocutionary forces resulting from their interaction with the total situation. (CK)

It is argued that among English sensation referents there is a primacy of vision referents for syntactic, semantic and morphological phenomena. (RM)

Data are presented that challenge the difficulty ordering for anaphoric syntax (e.g., pronouns) proposed by Bormuth, Manning, Carr, and Pearson. It is suggested that any such difficulty ordering which results from tests of the form proposed by Bormuth has uncontrolled variability due to semantic factors that have yet to be carefully analyzed and…

Concerns the language development of four children between the ages of 19 and 26 months, as they progressed from single-word utterances to a mean length of utterance of 2.5 morphemes. The observed developmental sequence is described and possible linguistic and cognitive explanations for it are discussed.

The factive nominal construction of Spanish shows to what extent semantic notions and syntactic constraints are mutually influential. Positive presupposition on the part of the speaker as to truth or falsehood of a subordinate proposition is reflected by the use of the indicative mood; negative or indefinite presupposition by use of the…

Synonyms are not in syntactic free-variation. Some text composition rules are examined and it is shown that they prevent the occurrence of paradoxical utterances which could arise if synonyms were freely substitutable. (Text is in German.) (TL)

This paper discusses the interrelations between the three aspects of semiotics - semantics, syntactics and pragmatics. Topics covered include the structure of semiotics, foundations of the category of sign, the centrality of pragmatics, relations between semiotics and linguistics, and between semiotics and the theory of art. (CK)