Describes "need" as a semiauxiliary and marginal modal and as a full lexical verb in present-day British English from the syntactic, lexical, semantic, and pragmatic points of view. The descriptions given by grammars as well as examples in British-English texts are compared. (14 references) (Author/CFM)

A review of previous analyses of the syntax of Fuzhou Tone Sandhi precedes the exploration of grammatical relations and the application of phrase-level tone sandhi rules, concluding that modifiers, but not arguments, preceding the head can undergo tone sandhi, as can heads preceding arguments, but not modifiers. (18 references) (Author/CB)

This discussion focuses on the formalist and functionalist views of language, which put forth conflicting theories as to the origins of language. It is concluded that this conflict can be resolved because central to language there exists an autonomous grammar shaped in part by natural selection. (JL)

Discusses the basic taxonomy of linguists, that is the differences between formalist and functionalist approaches, as suggested in a previous article, focusing on the implications of such a taxonomy. (JL)

In response to a previous article attempting to bridge the gap between formalist and functionalist theories of language, it is argued that the theory's views of evolutionary theory, natural selection, and functionalism are naive. It is suggested that coming to these issues from a generative standpoint naturally subsumes the functionalist claims of…

The relations between the meanings of verbs and the syntactic structures in which they appear were investigated in 5 experiments involving approximately 156 college students (most attended the University of Pennsylvania). Findings support the view that the syntax of verbs is a regular, although complex, projection from their semantics. (SLD)

Uses a detailed analysis of a single grammatical problem to present the principal commitments and mechanisms of a grammatical theory that assigns a central role to the notion of grammatical construction. The grammatical phenomenon used to introduce construction grammar is the construction that licenses the surprising syntactic and semantic…

Examines parallelisms between surface structure and logical structure and why those parallelisms do not extend farther than they do. If syntactic deep structures are identified with logical structures, an appropriate cyclic principle guarantees that cyclic rules will apply so that large-scale parallelisms exist between surface syntactic structures…

Analyzes the word order characteristics of "hentai Kambun, the archaic Japanese writing styles employed for recording Japanese in a way that outwardly resembles Chinese. Proposes that hentai kambun word order can receive a systematic account by assuming that Japanese has underlying head-initial word-order, and that it is a representation of this…

Considers some obvious and some not so obvious syntax errors, and how to correct them, using numerous examples taken from material published or broadcast. (SR)

Examined use of word order and animacy for interpretation of sentences by typically-developing and language delayed children. Results indicate that typically-developing 2-year-olds use neither cue consistently to interpret sentences; typically-developing 2.5-year-olds used a coalition of word order and animacy cues; and language-delayed…

Describes the development of a prototype system to analyze the ambiguity and complexity of cataloging rules to aid the quality control of cataloging standards. Highlights include AACR2 (Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, 2nd edition) rules, syntactic structure of rules, rule parsing, rule templates, relationships between rules, examples, and further…

It has been observed that phonological phrasing in Shanghai Chinese distinguishes certain determiners from others and wh-quantifier phrases from non-wh-quantifier phrases. This article shows that such phonological phrasing distinctions are also found in Hokkien Chinese but in a more restricted environment. (Author/VWL)

Reports elicited production and grammaticality judgment data from three experiments on the status of resumptive pronouns in English. Participants were children and adults. Examined children's acquisition of syntax in light of development of linguistic processing systems. (Author/VWL)

Looks at two languages, one well known and the other less so, that have undergone changes in word order. Data for the two languages in question--English and Irish--are compared. Parallels in the internal mechanisms suggested for the attested word order changes in both Old English and Old Irish are examined critically. (Author/VWL)