This paper discusses the development of structuralism in psychology, linguistics, mathematics, philosophy, anthropology, and sociology by citing theories supported by thinkers in all these fields. The contrast between structure (schema, pattern, gestalt) and function (activity, interaction, transformation) is used as the point of departure for the…

This paper describes the notation and underlying organization of an augmented, recursive-transition network grammar and illustrates how such a grammar is a natural medium for expressing and explaining a wide variety of facts about the psychological processes of sentence comprehension. A general discussion of transformational grammar and…

This investigation sought to learn about the oral and written language behavior of students from kindergarten age through grade 7, and to determine the validity of different analytic techniques for measuring children's development in control of syntax. Language samples were collected from 180 children (grades K-3, 5, and 7) by having the children…

This article provides a discussion of current topics in psycholinguistics and of the current research on these problems. The author discusses current thought on the biological foundations of language and the problem of universals. If human language is a species-particular achievement contingent upon a biological endowment, there should be certain…

This paper considers Spanish adjectives and the possibility of converting some adjectives into adverbs, keeping the same general significance of a sentence. The conversion of an adjective into an adverb under these circumstances can be accomplished through a transformation which can be applied to a particular logical-semantic structure. The author…

This collection of articles written over a period of 10 years concerning the transformational syntax of English has been divided into six sections. The articles in the first section provide background material for the reader with no specialized linguistic preparation. They present the fundamental questions that linguists are now asking, some of…

This study, contrasting grammatical structures in English and Hungarian, considers those areas of grammar in the two languages which would cause the greatest interference for the native English speaker learning Hungarian. The choice of topics is based on the author's personal observation, both of English speakers learning Hungarian and of…

The contrastive linguistics papers contained in this collection concern a wide variety of issues within the field -- ranging from phonology and syntax to interference and error analysis in foreign language instruction. The papers, while discussing specific topics, for example, "Equivalence, Congruence, and Deep Structure" or "Comparative Analysis…

The three papers contained in this document cover particular issues in diverse languages. The first concerns the distribution and function of postpositions in Awutu, an African language; the main function of such morphemes is marking case. The second paper discusses the unusual phonology system of Wichita; this American Indian language is…

To help assess the writing ability of college freshmen studying English as a second language (ESL), this study was undertaken to identify particular structures of subordination associated with writing maturity and to develop a diagnostic instrument to test student control of those structures. Following sentence-generating principles of…

Given that the principal bounding nodes, or barriers, for subjacency are noun phrase (NP), S, and S-bar, with S optionally a barrier, NP and S-bar obligatorily barriers, differences between Greek and English WH-movement are discussed. The contrasts are derived from independently motivated differences in NP structure between the two languages.…

Argues that children's OV utterances cannot be related transformationally to VO utterances because children initially acquire OV and VO with different sets of verbs, and also argues that L2 acquisition data can be accounted for within a model of L1 structural transfer, without requiring adult learner access to Universal Grammar. (Author/LMO)

Examines the idea of a mismatch between grammaticality and acceptability. Evidence is used to refute the claim that ungrammatical but acceptable sentences are theoretically plausible in the case of the sentence, "A not unhappy person entered the room." (AMH)

Two questions are central to the controversy in phonological theory: (1) are there empirical differences between morphophonemic alterations and allophonic variation, and (2) what are the universal constraints on the ordering of phonological processes within the phonological rule component. This paper illustrates a Natural Generative Phonology…

A study of children's syntax from a transformational perspective was initiated to explore the following areas: syntactic differences between narrative, descriptive, expository, and argumentative writing, and the relation of these differences to IQ, sex, and reading comprehension; the relation of syntax content; and the relation of children's…