This article considers two specific problems which arise when seeking equivalent sentences in French and in English, that of the articles and of the forms of the verbs. Without determining the internal asymmetry of the two languages, the language learner will have a highly inaccurate picture of so-called equivalents. (CFM)

Determining the gender of German nouns is an awesome task for the beginning student of German. This article lists rules which might facilitate this task. The gender can sometimes be inferred from the ending of a word, sometimes by the meaning, but sometimes only through memorization. (Author/TL)

Shows that evidence exists for a rule of neg-raising in French. Neg-raising and its domain are then reconsidered from a functional perspective, whereby the transformation is shown to be hedging device. (Author/RM)

Children in kindergarten and first and second grades were presented sentences that were harmonious, neutral or contrary to their expectations. It was found that sentences contrary to expectation elicited more misinterpretation than did harmonious and neutral sentences and that case relations were assigned to agree with what was expected. (GO)

Two-word utterances of four language-impaired children (3 to 4 years old) at R. Brown's Stage I level of linguistic development were compared with two-word utterances of four young normal children at the same linguistic level to determine any differences between the two groups in the use of a set of 10 basic semantic relations. (Author/SBH)

A study of the syntactic organization of discourse and an attempt to show that in all languages organization is necessary for meaningful utterances. Topics covered are: the necessity of regular predication in French; a definition of the subject-verb unity; and the non-verbal predicate. (Text is in French.) (AMH)

Speakers of Italian often have problems mastering Spanish because they erroneously believe its great similiarity to Italian makes it easy to learn. One of the fundamental problems is the lack of ability to choose the correct verb, "ser" or "estar," both equivalents of the Italian "essere." (Text is in Spanish.) (CFM)

Assesses three papers in this volume, those by Wellman and Estes, Olson and Torrance, and Hall and Nagy, for their treatment of the following: (1) definition of semantic space, (2) defining children's processes of understanding that space, and (3) describing the contexts in which cognitive language is used. (AEW)

Discusses expert systems and their value as components of information retrieval systems related to semantic inference, and describes IOTA, a model of an intelligent information retrieval system which emphasizes natural language query processing. Experimental results are discussed and current and future developments are highlighted. (Author/LRW)

The Sentence Combining Test was administered to three groups of college students (N=45) identified as learning disabled (LD), normal, and basic (underachieving) writers. Among results was that LD writers made a higher percentage of meaning errors across all subtests. (Author/JW)

Typical contemporary ways of forming word derivations and composite words in French are outlined and discussed, and the distinctions between different types of composites are noted. (MSE)

Thirty-one cognitively normal college students unfamiliar with Blissymbolics were able to make reliable ratings of the perceived complexity of 91 Blissymbols. Based on these ratings, a correlational analysis indicated that the semantic variable "semantic elements" and the physical variable "number of strokes" were the best…

Notes that finding appropriate, statistically sound means of collecting data is important step in developing research. Presents goal attainment scaling and semantic differential as two flexible, reliable, and valid data-collection methodologies useful for practitioners. Provides procedural instructions and examples for constructing each…

Discusses the occurrence or nonoccurrence of the contraction of prepositions and determiners in German to emphasize that the communicative function of certain syntactic forms can only be understood, and should therefore only be taught, within the framework of contextual analysis. (CB)