The present volume is designed to help the student of child language, especially the beginning student, discover the high points of American and international research, such as French, German, Hebrew, Polish, and Russian. The selections in this reader are intended as an introduction to various fields of child language and to different theories and…

Articles represent four schools of thought in the field of linguistics: structural, behavioral, transformational, and tagmemic. Summarizing structural linguistics before 1956, John Lotz emphasizes the importance of spoken language and the "internal order" imposed upon "physical and behavioral phenomena," and indicates some of the basic beliefs of…

In an epilogue to the 1967 research report, "Transformational Sentence-Combining" (See ED 018 405.), John Mellon considers the significance of the sentence-combining experience and answers the charges of critics--Wayne O'Neil, James Moffett, and Francis Christensen--regarding his original research findings. Mellon points out, for example, that…

Three grammars that, since the 50's, have supplemented or offered alternatives to traditional grammar are discussed in this article. The role of grammar in communicative utterances and the underlying considerations in describing a grammatical system are analyzed. Then, brief summaries about and comments on structural linguistics, tagmemic grammar,…

Identifiable relational entities in the Auxiliary (Aux) structure of Nonstandard Negro English (NNE) enter into different sets of relationship from identifiable relational entities in the Aux structure of Standard English (SE). Specifically, there is an absence of "have + en" structures; there is no agreement between subjects and verbal forms…

The author finds Katz and Postal's 1964 generative semantic theories concerning the organization of grammar incorrect and proposes an interpretive approach to semantics in which syntactic structures are given interpretations by an autonomous semantic component. The research reported leads the author to describe a generative grammar consisting of…

A review of traditional and transformational studies on the phenomenon of sentential complementation (noun clauses) reveals many areas of agreement. Although some adherents of generative grammar may have occasionally obscured this aspect because of the offensive nature of their criticism of other modes of analysis, it is seen that, in several…

The language curriculum initiated at the Rhode Island School for the Deaf consists of two stated innovations in teaching methods, which are language development through concept formation and application of transformational grammar. Description of the teaching method reveals that aurally handicapped pupils learn to analyze sentence structure by…

The possible usefulness of computer poetry is concerned with what the programmer can learn about language, about poetry, and about poets. The problems in designing computer programs to construct poetry include considerations in generating well-formed sentences which have the added restrictions that poetry requires: meter, rhyme, logic, diction,…

A brief analysis of several theories of language acquisition and of various methods of language instruction leads to a proposal of general guidelines to be used in the development of an experimental course in Latin for seventh-grade students. The author discusses the writings of Chomsky, Sweet, and Brooks and suggests the abandonment of…

There is a difference between learning a second language and learning a second dialect; the English as a second language (ESL) program should be limited to teaching English to students who do not already know English. Although there are not enough ESL programs, there is also a problem that some students are receiving ESL instruction even though…

This document contains three reports in prepublication form on research conducted by linguists at the University of Colorado. The first paper presents an argument against the theories concerning the concept of the distributional syllable. Such theories are based on the assumptions that the syllable can and should be defined formally, without…

Most Russian courses suffer from an inadequate approach to the presentation of syntax even though continued emphasis on syntax from the beginning would help to remove the trial and error syndrome inherent in purely audiolingual methods and would channel the student's efforts to internalize and make automatic his answers in a relevant context, thus…

Aspects of language instruction which "derive from the nature of language itself" are discussed in this study. The notion that language teachers should teach grammar exclusively is disputed. This position is based on the following generalizations presented in an analysis of the nature of grammar and language: (1) language comprises more than what…

This book is intended for use in a course on linguistics for students who, having had some introduction to the field, wish to consider the ways in which linguistic theory can be applied to the practical matter of contrasting languages. The intention is to present some of the contemporary themes of linguistics to advanced students who eventually…