Explores the use of the English phrase "I wish," focusing on the use of past and present tenses, the addition of the word "would," and both positive and negative uses of the phrase. (CB)

Study of a group of logical connectors in English demonstrates how the meanings of those connectors signal the grounding of the clauses they introduce in absolute terms, unlike other linguistic means of grounding performed by tense, aspect, mood, voice, or verbal categories. (14 references) (Author/CB)

This paper demonstrates that a formalization of the content of X-bar theory reveals very little substance in its claims. Six conditions that encapsulate X-bar theory are discussed: lexicality, succession, uniformity, maximality, centrality, and optionality. (50 references) (JL)

Identifies the characteristics and functions of carrier nouns (such as "purpose"), including their function as countable abstract nouns, occurrence in "container" sentences, similarity to pronouns, and endophoric and exophoric references. Special focus is on ways that carrier nouns capture more than concepts. (19 references) (CB)

Analysis of the differences in use and meaning of simple verb phrases ("to look") and nominalized phrases ("to have a look") points out that such constructions are not semantically empty, light, or weak, because these structures introduce meanings that are uniquely determined by the basic sense of the verb in question. (40 references) (CB)

Examines the so-called internally headed relative construction in Japanese, with particular focus on new data that involve quantificational noun phrases and wh-phrases. Data provide arguments for representations in which the internal head remains internal at LF, and it is also shown that the interpretation of this construction involves E-type…

Discusses automatic indexing methods and describes the development of a prototype computerized abstractor's assistant. Highlights include the text network management system, TEXNET; phrase selection that follows indexing; phrase display, including Boolean capabilities; results of preliminary testing; and availability of TEXNET software. (LRW)

A current limitation of the connectionist approach to second language acquisition (SLA) research is that it does not, to my knowledge, include complex linguistic representations. This article proposes a partial solution to this limitation by motivating and illustrating specific analyses that utilize the signbased representations developed within…

This article focuses on the development of vocabulary among English language learners. The author first defines what a "word" means, then discusses five aspects of vocabulary knowledge. Drawing on Swain (1993), the author identifies three main goals of vocabulary learning. The rest of the article is devoted to the description of six…

The present study investigated the relationship between L2 incidental lexical gain during reading and the variables of clause type and word saliency. Lexical gain was defined as gain of grammatical class and word meaning and was compared for target items in dependent and independent clauses. Word saliency was a measurement of the learners'…

P. Bloom's (1990) data on subject omission are often taken as strong support for the view that child language can be explained in terms of full competence coupled with processing limitations in production. This paper examines whether processing limitations in learning may provide a more parsimonious explanation of the data without the need to…

Four experiments were performed which had the goal of determining how and when young children acquire the ability to understand long distance dependencies. These studies examined the operations underlying the auditory processing of non-canonically ordered constituents in object-relative sentences. Children 4-6 years of age and an adult population…

This study examined the development of spoken discourse among L2 learners of Japanese who received extensive practice on grammatical chunks. Participants in this study were 22 college students enrolled in an elementary Japanese course. They received instruction on a set of grammatical chunks in class through communicative drills and the…

Two rating studies demonstrate that English speakers willingly produce reduced relatives with internal cause verbs (e.g., "Whisky fermented in oak barrels can have a woody taste"), and judge their acceptability based on factors known to influence ambiguity resolution, rather than on the internal/external cause distinction. Regression analyses…

The role of prosodic phrasing in sentence comprehension was investigated by means of three different tasks, namely auditory word monitoring (Experiment 1), self-paced reading (Experiment 2) and cross-modal comparison (Experiment 3). In all three experiments a critical prosodic unit or frame comprising a determiner, a noun and a Prepositional…