Including causal links in concept maps enables learners to meaningfully relate concepts to a larger context or problem in terms of how and where concepts apply within the chains of causal events that lead to a given goal or outcome. Given that higher quality maps are produced when students link and sequence events to flow temporally and…

Aspect markers (AMs), temporal adverbs (TAs) and temporal nouns (TNs) are used by young Mandarin-speaking children to express time. However, the factors that affect the relative acquisition trajectories of these categories remains unclear. Accordingly, this study adopts Weist's time-concept model to examine the patterns of acquisition between and…

One of the basic findings on situation models and language comprehension is that reading times are affected by the changing event structure in a text. However, many studies have traditionally used multiple, relatively short texts, in which there is little event consistency across the texts. It is unclear to what extent such changes will be…

Explains how the "futur anterieur" is often used to indicate past time in French grammar. Using authentic evidence from a news magazine, some hypotheses on the conditions of use of the "futur anterieur" are suggested. Criteria for distinguishing past tense functions from modal functions are also presented. (TR)

American Sign Language verbs have several ways to indicate time: 1)reference to a specific time; 2) extension at wrist, elbow, or shoulder to indicate future time; 3) flexion at wrist, elbow, or shoulder to indicate past tense. (Author/LMO)

Three experiments investigating the use of temporal information in a reduced relative clause to interpret verb tense of the main clause found that subjects rapidly assessed temporal information to resolve tense ambiguity, demonstrating an incremental approach to comprehension that uses previous discourse to continuously update comprehension and…

Research performed by HumRRO Division No. 3, Presidio of Monterey, California 93940, under Dept. of the Army contract with George Washington University.

This book attempts to bring together semantic theory and description in order to provide the foundation of a unified "semantics of English." Part 1 is thus devoted to semantic theory and Part 2 to the description of some central fields of meaning in English. In Part 1, theory is developed involving two kinds of semantic analysis:…

This paper is directed toward a traditional problem in the analysis of texts, that of finding meaningful linguistic units that are larger than a sentence and smaller than the text itself. Two principles are given for finding extended temporal structures based on the temporal expressions that occur in sentences: a sentence can be captured to form…

Briefly discusses previous accounts of the English tense system and proposes another system in which verbs are divided into the following subcategories: 1) timelessness; 2) present; 3) past; 4) future. Examples of each subcategory are cited for the English as a second language teacher. A reference list of 41 citations is included. (Author/LMO)

Changes in frequency of occurrence of the following linguistic variables in recovery from aphasia due to left temporal lobe lesions are analyzed in text and graphs: (1) quantity of verbalization, (2) syntactic structure: subject-verb-object vs. topic-comment, (3) syntactic complexity, (4) nouns and verbs, (5) morphology, (6) anaphora, and (7)…

This study focuses on the development of the ability to talk about events in time -- to specify occurrence in time with reference to the present as well as to locate events in time with reference to each other. The child's learning of how to mark the different kinds of relationships between two events is discussed. This study of current relevance…

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)