The author accepts some of the technical comments in Dresher and Hornstein's article on artificial intelligence (AI), (EJ 161 384, Cognition, December 1976), but disagrees with several other comments. Although Dresher and Hornstein unquestioningly adopt Noam Chomsky's paradigm for the study of language, their real point is that AI researchers are…

Suggests that, for the assessment of performance in low and intermediate levels of reading, sentence-completion tasks can play an informative role and that, for students who have acquired these skills, the tests are valuable for ascertaining vocabulary acquisition or comprehension of syntactic structures. (JM)

This paper attempts to investigate the semantic and syntactic features of Taiwanese question particles and to make some preliminary inquiry into their diachronic development mainly on the basis of their synchronic phenomena including, frequencies of forms in various age groups and localities. (CHK)

This paper explores the interrelationship of syntax and semantics in two types of Verb-Verb construction in Mandarin, namely, resultative verb compounds and directional verb compounds. Evidence shows that resultative verbs are actually made up of different classes of Verb-Verb constructions, possessing specific semantic implications. (CHK)

The article looks at idiomaticity from the semantic and syntactic angles. After a summary of the problems arising from a semantic definition, some recent proposals regarding the syntactic behavior of idioms are reviewed briefly and evaluated. There is a sizable bibliography. (AMH)

An attempt to clarify terms and to better describe certain elements in the author's own theory in view of a more exact interpretation of functional grammar. A grammatical function is defined; relationships within a sentence and possible choices among relationships are discussed. (Text is in French.) (AMH)

An analysis of the derivation of "why" and other interrogative adverbs shows that they do not involve the movement of NP's, and therefore do not present counter-examples to the NP Ecology Constraint. (Author/HP)

The premise that diglossamania, which is a pressure for second language learners to produce in English the equivalent style of the mother tongue, and which in turn leads to an artificial style, is discussed. (HP)

An analysis of sentence grammar is made to show that the ability to produce coherent texts emerges slowly and late in linguistic and cognitive development. (HP)

Discusses the importance of two Firthian themes for language teaching. The first theme, "Restricted Languages," concerns the "microlanguages" of every language (e.g., literary language, scientific, etc.). The second theme, "Collocation," shows that equivalent words in two languages rarely have the same position in…

This article considers two specific problems which arise when seeking equivalent sentences in French and in English, that of the articles and of the forms of the verbs. Without determining the internal asymmetry of the two languages, the language learner will have a highly inaccurate picture of so-called equivalents. (CFM)

Shows that evidence exists for a rule of neg-raising in French. Neg-raising and its domain are then reconsidered from a functional perspective, whereby the transformation is shown to be hedging device. (Author/RM)

Children in kindergarten and first and second grades were presented sentences that were harmonious, neutral or contrary to their expectations. It was found that sentences contrary to expectation elicited more misinterpretation than did harmonious and neutral sentences and that case relations were assigned to agree with what was expected. (GO)

This monograph presents a descriptive analysis of the syntactic patterns in 16 corpora of word combinations from 11 infants learning either English (six children), Samoan, Finnish, Hebrew, or Swedish. The mean utterance lengths range up to about 1.7 morpehmes. There are both reanalyses of corpora in the literature and new corpora. The data…

In evaluating the Northwestern Syntax Screening Test (a test for assessing expressive and receptive grammar in preschool and primary age children), the author points out problems with the test norms, reliability, and validity. (SBH)