Spanish modal verbs may express necessity, obligation, probability, and possibility, in either their personal or impersonal modes. Analysis is based on examples of contemporary Madrid speech. Four modals, "poder,""deber (de)," tener que," and "haber que," are placed within a tripartite structure defined by…

Supports the assertion that pedagogical grammar must be a marriage of syntax and pragmatics through consideration of the different characteristics of "yes/no" questions and of how input from both syntax and pragmatics is needed to explain these characteristics. (Author/CB)

The study examined whether 10 developmentally delayed children (3:3 to 5:4 years old) would demonstrate superior comprehension for restricted, syntactically incomplete as compared to reduced, syntactically complete forms. The five children functioning at late linguistic stage I demonstrated better comprehension than the early stage I children for…

Two language-delayed children (three-four years old) received comprehension instruction on preposition-object phrases using a miniature linguistic system format to structure generalization. Results indicated generalization not only to untreated two-word combinations but also to comprehension of four-word phrases. In addition, there was some…

Investigates the apparent correspondences for infinitival "to," and analyzes the basis for the common error of equating it with "a"--the mistaken identification of an English grammatical complementizer with a Spanish lexical preposition. (SL)

The article suggests that comparability, representativeness, and typicality must be considered along with length when collecting language samples. A framework is offered for selecting or devising tasks, and one successful battery is described which has been field tested on language-disordered children with syntax problems. (CL)

Discusses a general strategy for helping students acquire vocabulary, specifically how to master the vocabulary problem of "ser" and "estar." This is done by showing students, in interesting and recognizable ways, that English is sensitive to many of the same semantic differences of "ser" and "estar." (SED)

Discusses the teaching strategies used in the University of Colorado Russian Project in which Russian is taught using "Pravda" or other Russian newspapers from the very first day of class. Argues that this approach must emphasize syntax (functional grammar) as opposed to case or formal grammar. (SED)

Fifty-five poor readers and 58 normal readers in grade six were presented a modified version of B. Hamill's tone pattern-phrase matching procedure. Consistent with Hamill's adults, Ss tended to choose phrases which matched long tone durations to content words and short durations to function words. (Author/CL)

Reports on an acoustical investigation of syntactic stress in alaryngeal speech. Measurements were made of fundamental frequency, relative intensity, vowel duration, and intersyllable duration. Findings suggest that stress contrasts in alaryngeal speech are based on a complex of acoustic cues which are influenced by linguistic structure.…

Examination of linguistic and cognitive skills of 59 deaf students (7-15 years old) revealed that Ss whose parents consistently signed to them showed greater syntactic comprehension and more advanced operational skills than students whose parents signed less consistently. (Author/CL)

Reports on a study designed to show that Tulving's theory of encoding specificity and Bahrick's theory of associative continuity are not contradictory, rather complementary. (CLK)

The enclitic status of the article in Contemporary Standard Bulgarian and Contemporary Standard Macedonian is investigated by comparing its junctural and accentual properties with those of undisputed enclitics in each language. (Author/RM)

Describes the purpose, structure and application of this monolingual verb lexicon, which indicates the morphosyntactic environments of the most common German verbs. Mention is made of the forthcoming valence lexicon. The book is for teachers and textbook writers. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

Presents a classification of French "-ment" adverbs based on syntactical criteria. The major divisions, consisting of "sentence adverbs" and "adverbs of manner," are further sub-divided into functional sub-groups. (Text is in French.) Available from: Akademisk Forlag, St. Kannikestraede 6-8, DK-1169 Copenhague K Danemark. (AM)