This report is the third in a series of annual reports describing the research performed by Stanford Research Institute to provide the technology that will allow speech understanding systems to be designed and implemented for a variety of different task domains and environmental constraints. The current work is being carried out cooperatively with…

This is a state-of-the-art review of word formative morphology. The paper surveys three loosely knit 'schools' of word formation: (1) the Generative school, (2) the Continental school, and (3) the Slavicist school. It points out that much work in word formation is being duplicated because of a lack of coordination and communication between the…

The paper constitutes an attempt to provide a nonenumerative characterization of agreeing terms and agreement features. The following pertinent statements turn out to be (near) exceptionless: only coreferential terms agree, and for any given language all agreement features are pronominal ones. Four agreement features, gender, number, definiteness,…

This book attempts to introduce the reader to techniques of communication control, in listening and speaking as well as reading and writing. To this end, the use of a simplified vocabulary called Every Man's English is advocated. Section 2 presents some principles of Every Man's English. The contribution of Ogden's Basic English, a core vocabulary…

No attempt is made here to construct a theory about language and sexism, but examples of English usage are provided as data which would have to be accounted for by any general statements regarding the nature and function of sexist language in our society. The examples are taken from the English lexicon and syntactic structure, with emphasis on…

The role of inference in children's comprehension and memory is the subject of this research report. An underlying proposition is that in order for a child to effectively understand and remember linguistic or nonlinguistic information, he must actively embellish the given stimulus material with his own implicit knowledge. In the experiment…

This paper studies aspects of the conceptual basis for language acquisition, with a focus on the perceptual-cognitive skills used to assign meanings to words. A first assumption is that the correspondence between adult and child perceptual features allows for early communication. Apparently, in the first year, naming is characterized by…

The paper begins with a discussion of several recently proposed analyses of nominal compounds in English. It is then suggested that the relations which may appropriately underlie nominal compounds of the type Noun + Noun can best be defined negatively, i.e. by listing those relations between two nouns which cannot underlie compounds rather than…

Assuming that hypothesized concepts of "case" and "semantic deep structure" reveal insights into the irregularities of cognitive semantic structures underlying the English language, this study attempted to probe the semantic structure of English to provide a foundation for language curriculum materials. Using the case grammar of Charles J.…

This book, originally published in German in 1967, is intended to offer a detailed introductory review and discussion of psycholinguistic thought and research over the last two decades. Because it was originally directed to a German audience, the book places strong emphasis on behaviorist psychology, which has had little influence in Europe. The…

This paper asserts the "unquestionable" relevance of linguistic insights in the training of and subsequent use by teachers of English as a foreign language. Although the author agrees with Chomsky's view that linguistics has nothing to offer the teacher in the form of specific proposals for language teaching methodology, he argues that linguistics…

Some of the assertions made by Chomsky in "Aspects of the Theory of Syntax" are considered. In particular, the notion of a "competence" model in linguistics is criticized. Formal postulates for a conceptually-based linguistic theory are presented. (Author/JD)

Social Science assumes, as our human experience daily confirms, that social life is orderly. This paper proposes to document the detailed orderliness of actual conversational interaction, show that participants orient to this orderliness, and explicate the knowledge--together with the rules for situated use of this knowledge--which members…

Experiments conducted to find ways of teaching two and three year olds mathematical concepts were found to have general implications for concept learning. The failure of an initial attempt to teach the concepts "fat" and "skinny" led to a design of instructional procedures that would utilize a concept's name while trying to teach its semantic…

This book presents a basis for preschool education derived from a rigorous analysis of the concept of education. The central concern is to provide a strategy for the development of an Australian preschool that is educationally sound, and, at the same time, has an identity of its own. Included are discussions of the dilemmas, issues, and strategies…