Describes the seven main components of QUEST, a cognitive model of question answering that attempts to simulate the answers adults produce when they answer different types of questions, both closed class and open class. Illustrates how the model could be applied to different types of knowledge structures, including causal networks, goal…

Tests the QUEST model of question answering in two experiments. Examines which components of QUEST could predict good answers to why-questions and how-questions in the context of short stories. Supports the validity of arc-search procedures and structural distance for both question categories. Finds only partial support for number of information…

Tests the QUEST model of question answering in naturalistic settings and in settings with complex pragmatic constraints: telephone surveys, business interactions, filmed interviews, and interviews on popular television programs. Finds that QUEST explains most of the answers in these contexts and virtually all of the answers that refer to the…

Reports on a study in which subjects heard the beginnings of spoken words, followed by increasingly larger segments of word-onset information until the words could be correctly identified. Results are discussed in terms of word-initial phonology as a trigger for response activation. (34 references) (Author/OD)

Two studies examining children's understanding of three terms denoting different degrees of likelihood showed that, while preschoolers showed little comprehension of the adverbs' meanings, by fourth grade, most children could distinguish between them. Children understood the distinction between "definitely" and the other two terms better than the…

Investigates the relationship between performance in phonemic segmentation and reading and writing ability. Finds that onset-rime distinction is relevant for segmentation, while word meaning is not. Concludes that a serial model of segmentation is inadequate, and that an articulatory rather than a phonological code is the object of segmentation.…

Describes the study of the use of /s/ vs. /h/ or O (in Spanish) in Valdivia, Chile, by speakers who differed in sex and age. No marked differences in relation to sex and age were found, indicating a relatively homogeneous community. (MLS)

Discusses the motivation for Universal Grammar (UG), as assumed in the principles and parameters framework of generative grammar (Chomsky, 1981), focusing on the logical problem of first-language acquisition and the potential role of UG in second-language acquisition. Recent experimental research regarding the second-language status of the…

Discusses the fundamental problems within speech act theory, focusing on the extent that these problems undermine attempts to apply speech act theory in the field of language pedagogy. (96 references) (Author/OD)

Provides an experimental validation of Landau and Gleitman's (1985) syntactic bootstrapping procedure on how children may use syntactic information to learn new verbs. The children's choice of the correct referent for a given verb versus a nonsense verb in two syntactic structures is explained. (37 references) (GLR)

Examines narrative telling by children, and the transition in development from the capability of talking in the "here and now" to the capability of telling about the "there and then." Seemingly, very young children can produce narratives in an unscaffolded context to adults unfamiliar with these experiences. (23 references) (GLR)

Describes the natural language processing techniques used in two computer-assisted language instruction programs: VERBCON and PARSER. Contends that only by incorporating natural language processing techniques can these programs offer a substantial number of exercises and at the same time provide students with informative feedback. (Author)

Assessment of two-year-olds' (N=22) acquisition of words for referents of previously learned words indicated that young children found it easier to learn a new word when they were able to contrast its referent with that of a word they already knew. (Author/CB)

Compares the distribution of prepositions in American and British English. Two machine-readable one million word Corpora, the Brown Corpus of American English and the Lob Corpus of British are used as a basis of comparison. (Author/OD)

A review of the development and interaction of research involving second language contrastive analysis, error analysis, and interlanguage demonstrates how different assumptions and theoretical preconceptions have affected the results of such research, and the degree to which the research areas have drawn on the other areas. (39 references) (CB)