Evaluates the merits of item transformations and the cloze procedure in terms of (1) the extent to which literal comprehension skills are validly measured; (2) the extent to which the issue of passage dependency is addressed; and (3) utility for educational practitioners. (HOD)

The use of "some" and "any" does not depend solely on syntactic factors (sentence type), as hitherto taught, but also on the speaker's expectation and other pragmatic elements and on semantic factors not limited to those of quantification. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

The preposing of subject pronouns in questions containing an interrogative word has become common in several Caribbean countries. Use of preposing with "tu,""usted" and "ustedes" is discussed, including its relation to final "s" aspirated or dropped, preservation of morphological oppositions, and increased use of subject pronouns. (CHK)

Analyzes different kinds of reformulations used in information retrieval systems where full text databases are accessed through natural language queries. Tests of these reformulations on large full text databases managed by the Syntactic and Probabilistic Indexing and Retrieval of Information in Texts (SPIRIT) system are described, and an expert…

Focuses on language awareness as the ability to view a language objectively. The implications of certain ideas on language awareness for syllabus design and course planning are highlighted and some inadequacies of direct approaches to language teaching are discussed. (15 references) (Author/CK)

Examines Pierre Bourdieu's basic theory on language and criticisms of structuralism, transformational grammar, and the speech act theory as they appear in Language and Symbolic Power. Bourdieu's theories are applied to the colonial and postcolonial language situation in Nigeria. (JP)

Discusses two causes of what is considered here the inadequacy of generative grammars. (RM)

This paper concerns the theory of systemic grammar developed by Halliday, Hudson and others. It suggests modifications of Hudson's generative version, and the model presented resembles transformational grammar. (CHK)

Pessimism regarding pedagogical applications of contrastive studies, and reasons therefore, are described. Several misunderstandings believed to contribute to this pessimism, and several areas of controversy concerning uses of contrastive studies, are discussed. See FL 508 197 for availability. (RM)

The subject of a semantic sentence-forming process is discussed. It is suggested that the concept of agency should not be treated on a par with the concept of the objective. The hypothesis is confined to simple intransitive and transitive sentences. (Available from: See FL 508 214). (Author/RM)

Levelling processes in the history of the German verb paradigm from Old High German to the present are discussed. It is asserted that the theory of transformational generative grammar provides a proper framework for the study of linguistic change. (RM)

Certain aspects of transformational grammar can be effectively applied to the ESL classroom. The use of the "there" insertion rule in explaining declarative sentence patterns is described as an example. (AG)

The question whether second languages should be taught by the deductive or inductive method is discussed, and an argument is made for a middle ground between the two extremes. (RM)

This examination of Richard Montague's grammar as it is manifested in his study, "The Proper Treatment of Quantification in Ordinary English" (PTQ) proposes that the theory contains significant flaws and raises fundamental methodological questions about the aims of logic and linguistics. The first part of this discussion presents the…

An analysis of English sentences containing noun phrases (NPs) with extraposed complements argues that the extraposition (EX) is base-generated and not derived by any applications of the Move-alpha principle. A Move-alpha analysis is subject to substantial technical difficulties, and there exist cases of EX for which there is no plausible source…