Basic to composition skill is control of sentence structure and accuracy in mechanics. Although it is often said that a student should not write what he has not first heard and practiced orally, it might equally well be said that he should not be expected to write grammatical patterns that he has not read, inasmuch as there is a difference in the…

Despite the similarity in the surface structure, sentences containing a semi-auxiliary (e.g., "avoid,""bother,""happen,""seem,""begin,""tend," etc.) followed by a "to" infinitive or a gerund show a number of differences among themselves in respect to the co-occurrence…

In the years following the appearance of Noam Chomsky's book, "Syntactic Structures," in 1957, transformational grammarians modified and improved his initial model of language. The notion of a deep structure of meaning underlying a sentence's surface structure was revised to embody elements representing negation, command, and interrogation, and to…

Strengths and weaknesses of generative grammar are examined by an apologist for the traditionalists. Criticism is directed toward difficulties encountered by the layman in comprehending texts on linguistic theories, linguists' use of jargon and pet formulas, and unwieldy amounts of terminology constantly being developed. Special attention is…

This is an investigation of deletion procedures from surface structure to deep structure in Mandarin Chinese. The author explains that the deep structure of a sentence provides complete information on the semantic and syntactic constituency of the sentence, while surface structure contains information about the phonological interpretation and…

The writer introduces the idea of sociolinguistic competence, the ability of a speaker to produce and recognize an infinite number of inter-idiolectal code switches, and discusses two methods of dealing with such language variations: frequency analysis and implicational analysis. In frequency analysis, the method used by sociolinguists such as…

Ways in which negation varies in two dialects of French, called "standard" and "colloquial" are investigated. The two dialects under consideration are representative of an extensive scale of styles, often overlapping and varying according to social status, education, contextual situation, age, and geographical area. Although the great majority of…

The 25 entries in this bibliography constitute a survey of the linguistic literature related to coivs (Connection-of-Ideas Verbs). The bibliography is divided into three sections. In Part 1, the introductory remarks, coivs are described and classified; and examples of dative, parenthetical, and quotative coivs are given. Part 2 considers the…

Designed to provide elementary, secondary, and college English teachers with a basic knowledge of the history and structure of the English language, this book is composed of three sections. Part 1 provides an orientation to linguistics by analyzing the basic principles and the scope of language study, and discussing values and perspectives in the…

Developed by the Oregon Elementary English Project, the eighteen lessons in this unit aim to interest third and fourth grade students in thinking about how sentences are made, to introduce some grammatical concepts, and to build on the instinctive knowledge students already have about the English language. The first three lessons are devoted to…

The purpose of this study was to develop a sentence-combining system for teaching composition to seventh grade students. The exercises were designed so as to be independent of the students' previous knowledge of grammar. Chapter 1 examines recent studies in language and writing. The first part of chapter 2 demonstrates that normal growth in…

Based on the assumption that awareness of certain aspects of underlying structure is basic to comprehending the meaning of a sentence, the module described in this report (English Sentence Structure: Programmed Exercises) is designed to increase the learner's awareness of English syntactic structure. The materials follow a programmed format with…

Spontaneous full passives and related constructions from 234 children aged 2;0 to 13;11 and elicited passives from 262 college students were analyzed. Full passives were classified as reversible (The dog was chased by the girl), instrumental non-reversible (The lamp was broken by [or with] the ball), or agentive non-reversible (The lamp was broken…

This article argues that morphosemantic sets are a consequence of general properties of language structure. Thus the sets serve as a framework for advancing the study of motivation as a functional feature of language use. (Author/NCR)

Describes a study using transformational generative grammar to demonstrate that the frequently used structure "verb a verb" in Spanish is to be interpreted in three ways. Conclusions are drawn for the teaching of Spanish as a foreign language. (AMH)