A report on a study of a large number of subjects afflicted with sensory aphasia. Topics covered are: the distributional pattern of grammatical categories; paraphasia; a statistical analysis of associated syndromes; possible relationship to the location of the lesion. Some examples of spontaneous language are included. (Text is in French.) (AMH)

Examines colloquial contractions (spelling variants such as "kinda" and "hafta") against a background of other variations in the English writing system with respect to their morphological identity, characteristic spelling patterns, and significance in print. Divides variants into those that are independent of speech variation…

Discusses a study that examines which combination of animate and inanimate actors (anyone or anything performing an action) and patients (the thing that is the object of action) two-year-olds view as prototypical. Results suggest that the actor category is usually acquired first for prototypical sentences with animate actors and inanimate…

Describes a study that investigates the order of acquisition of case-marked pronouns in Hebrew among 105 children between two and five years of age. Results indicate that children begin using case-marked pronouns as early as age two and that the stage of morphological development parallels that of English-speaking children. (SED)

Discusses two studies that examine whether children are sensitive to the fact that adjectives and nouns differ in the contrast they imply. Results show that by age four, children are sensitive to this. Implications for children's use of referential language and word learning strategies are discussed. (SED)

Describes a study that analyzes the naturalistic productions of "because" and "so" by 96 children, aged three-and-a-half to nine-and-a-half years of age, while narrating personal events. Analyzes results in terms of such factors as: correctness, types of causality, nature of actor/recipient, time of causality, producer, and linguistic issues. (SED)

Discusses experiments that investigated the sources of knowledge that are employed in spoken word identification. The interactive assumption that normal spoken word identification processes require the presence of semantic and syntactic context and the special status given to word-initial acoustic-phonetic information in cohort theory were…

Examined the effects of rounded and unrounded vowels on the perception of the voiceless fricatives "s" and "sh" by adults and by young children who could and could not produce both sounds. Concluded that productive mastery is not critically responsible for perception of the distinction between the two phonemes or the…

Argues that word frequency counts do not indicate frequency of words at all, that they ignore linguistic context, and that they take no account of the situation in which words are encountered. Argues that these defects are so serious that such counts should be used with caution, if at all. (SR)

Critically reviews Bonnie Schwartz' 1986 article "The Epistemological Status of Second Language Acquisition," and focuses on the applicability of the modularity thesis of Chomsky and Fodor to second language learning (L2A); and on the relationship of such a theory to Krashen's model of L2A. (LMO)

Reviews research on the use of the "T-Unit" as a measure of language ability, demonstrating that the measure has limited utility in the case of second language, since it bases itself solely on syntax and does not reward speakers for sophistication in such areas as vocabulary. (Author/CB)

Examines the creative manipulation of certain narrative devices in modern Greek and in Tosk Albanian to show (1) how narrative performances become ways of relating historical events and past experiences in present-day life; and (2) that studies of language death should more intensely use ethnography of the speaking paradigm to detect sensitive…

Examined the conversations of preschool children as they completed two different tasks--a picture making task and a doll playing task. Concludes that the children's speech was primarily task-focused and that the rate of speech varied with task. (FL)

In three experiments, a multiple habituation paradigm was used to examine the ability of 7- and 9-month-old prelinguistic infants to form a natural, basic-level object category. Findings constitute independent evidence for the existence of a linguistically relevant nonlinguistic category prior to the onset of word comprehension. (SED)

The author describes a field-based program which integrates current theory of how elementary school children develop oral and written language processes with the role of the teacher as researcher, reflective practitioner, and effective planner. (MT)