bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Verb phrase deletion in English: a base-generated analysis
Authors: Napoli Donna Jo 
Published: December 2008

Sentences (1) and (2) have traditionally been related by a process that is called Verb Phrase Deletion (VPD).(1) If I wanted to collect bottles, I would collect bottles.(2) If I wanted to collect bottles, I would.The earliest analyses of this phenomenon suggested that (2) was derived from (1) by a syntactic deletion rule (hence the ‘deletion’ in the name of the process – cf. Ross (1969a)). Later (Jackendoff, 1972; Wasow, 1972; Fiengo, 1974; and Williams, 1977a, among others), it was suggested that a null anaphor was generated in the base followingwouldin (2), and that the semantic component read this anaphor as meaningcollect bottles, hence accounting for the synonymy of (1) and (2). A third possibility is that (2) is generated in the base with nothing followingwould, woulditself serving as a proform forwould collect bottles. And fourth, (2) could be derived from (1), leavingwouldas a proform, in a process resembling pronominalization more than deletion (perhaps ‘proverbalization’).
Backwards anaphora in discourse context
Authors: Carden Guy 
Published: December 2008

Most of the time a pronoun follows its antecedent, as in (Ia); less often the pronoun comes first, as in (Ib):(1) (a) The woman who is to marry Ralph will visit him tomorrow. (Forwards Pronominalization; coreferent elements in italics)(b) The woman who is to marry him will visit Ralph tomorrow. (Backwards Pronominalization)In elementary syntax classes we account for these ‘Backwards Pronominalization’ cases by building something like the Langacker (1969)/Ross (1969) structural condition into our Pronominalization rule.
Be going to and will: a pragmatic account
Authors: Haegeman Liliane 
Published: December 2008

In the literature on English tense usage, expressions of futurity such as(1) (a) I will/shall leave next week.(b) I'm going to leave next week.have already received a lot of attention, especially so in the pedagogical descriptive tradition of English linguistics (cf. Close, 1977; Haegeman, 1981, 1983; Leech, 1971; Quirk et al., 1985; Palmer, 1974, 1979; Wekker, 1976, etc.). Although these accounts are attractive, they raise further questions because most of them do not propose to deal with the problem against a formal theoretical background. As a consequence, the rules formulated to describe the use of shall/will or be going to in (1) tend to be intuitive and often do not really allow any decisive choice to be made in many instances of usage. On the other hand, Reichenbach type analyses of tense interpretation are usually mainly concerned with the general problem of tense representation and treat both examples in (1) as illustrations of future tense without detailed discussion of the contrasts between them.
Grammars for people
Authors: Lightfoot David 
Published: December 2008

TWO VIEWS OF GRAMMARFor many years, many people have used the term ‘grammar’ to indicate something which represents an individual's mature linguistic capacity and which arises in the mind/brain of that individual on exposure to some relevant childhood experience. The grammar interacts with other aspects of a person's mental make-up, in a modular conception of mind. Different experiences may give rise to different grammars in different individuals, but it is a plausible initial assumption that grammars arise in everybody in the same way, subject to the same principles, parameters and learning constraints, which are common to the species. This is a biological view of grammars. Countless questions arise about these grammars, about their internal properties, about how they are represented in brains, about how they emerge in young children. Under this view there is no grammar of English, rather various grammars which exist in the minds of English speakers; grammars hold of people and not of languages. Let us distinguish terminology from reality here: proponents of the biological view of grammars sometimes use ‘the grammar of French’ to refer to the grammars of French speakers in a kind of shorthand which abstracts away from individual variation. This usage may have been misleading but, as noted in Lightfoot (1991, henceforthHSP, 162), it is comparable to references to the French liver, the American brain, or the Irish wit; nobody believes that there is such an entity but sometimes it is a convenient abstraction.
Prenominal adjectives and the phrasal/lexical distinction
Authors: Sadler Louisa , Arnold Douglas J. 
Published: December 2008

This paper aims to demonstrate that there is no adequate treatment of adjectives in NP in English, and attempts to remedy this. The central problem is to account for the syntactic and semantic differences between prenominal and postnominal adjectival constructions as in (i)–(iv):(i) the navigable river(ii) the rivers navigable(iii) *the navigable by boat rivers(iv) the rivers navigable by boatExisting treatments are reviewed, and a novel analysis proposed whereby the structures in (ii) and (iv) are normal syntactic N-AP structures, but prenominally, adjectives form what we call ‘small’ syntactic constructions (X° constructions, with X° daughters) which have some properties in common with lexical/morphological constructions. If the analysis is right, it poses a serious challenge to the view that there is a strict separation of lexical and syntactic aspects of grammar: grammatical theory should recognize a kind of construction which is neither fully syntactic nor fully lexical, but has properties of both.
The effects of discourse support on the organization and production of children's utterances
Authors: Streim Nancy W. , Chapman Robin S. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTThis study asked whether lexical availability affects the length, complexity, order of mention, and fluency of children's utterances. Lexical availability was manipulated through discourse support (present or absent) and word frequency (high or low) for 40 target nouns. Length was indexed by mean number of words per communication unit. Complexity was indexed by mean number of verbs per communication unit. Earlier mention was measured by mean number of words preceding the target word in each communication unit. Thirty-six subjects, aged 4, 6, and 8, described 40 illustrations containing a high or low frequency target noun referent. In the discourse support condition, provided for one half of the target words, subjects named the target word prior to the description task. Results showed that the number of responses containing the target word varied with age, word frequency and discourse support condition; length of responses varied with age and its interaction with discourse support; earlier mention varied with age and discourse support condition; and fluency varied with discourse support condition. The results are discussed from the viewpoint of Bock's process model of sentence production.
Second language proficiency differences in the learning of semantically-equivalent bilingual sentences
Authors: Opoku J. Y. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTThree groups of subjects who used English as a second language and who were considered to be at different levels of proficiency in English participated in a study of transfer of learning from English to Yoruba, their native language, and from Yoruba to English. It was predicted that total transfer from one language to the other would decrease with increasing proficiency in English and that transfer from Yoruba to English would be higher than from English to Yoruba at lower levels of proficiency in English. Findings showed rather that total transfer increased with increasing proficiency in English and that transfer from English to Yoruba was higher than from Yoruba to English for all groups. It is concluded that on a verbal transfer task, bilinguals show development from independent to interdependent language systems with increasing proficiency in a second language.
The contributions of child and caregiver to referential and expressive language
Authors: Goldfield Beverly A. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTTwelve infants were observed longitudinally to examine the relationship of children's object play and social behavior and maternal object and social-centered talk to referential and expressive language. Measures of child behavior and maternal language were coded from play sessions videotaped in the home at 12, 15, and 18 months of age; mothers recorded their babies' first 50 words. Most children acquired a balanced distribution of object labels and social-centered words and phrases; a few children evidenced a more extreme “style.” More object labels were acquired by children who more often used a toy to engage mother and who had mothers who more often talked about toys. More social-centered speech was associated with children's nontoy-mediated social attention and more maternal behavior-focused speech.
Modular patterns in second language acquisition
Authors: Rescorla Leslie , Okuda Sachiko 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTAnalysis of data from the first six months of acquisition of English as a second language by a 5-year-old Japanese girl illustrates the role of modular “chunking” and coupling in the second language acquisition process. This process was apparent in the child's pre-copula and copula referential utterances. She produced a large number of creative and novel referential sentences by using a small number of patterns or modules. The same small set of patterns was seen in both adult and peer sessions, although advances in acquisition usually appeared in peer conversation before they were evident in adult session data.
Awareness of phonological segments and reading ability in Italian children
Authors: Cossu Giuseppe , Shankweiler Donald , Liberman Isabelle Y. , Katz Leonard , Tola Giuseppe 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTThe early evidence pertaining to the development of phonological segmentation abilities and their relation to reading was collected with English-speaking subjects. Although data from other languages have been obtained, explicit cross-language comparisons have not been made. It was considered that since languages vary in their phonological structures, they may also vary in the demands they make on the beginning reader. The present study compared the segmentation abilities of Italian children with those of English-speaking (American) children using the same methods of assessment and the same subject-selection criteria. At the preschool level, though the Italian children manifested a higher level of performance overall, their pattern of performance paralleled that obtained earlier with American children. In both groups, syllable segmentation ability was stronger than phoneme segmentation. After school entrance, this pattern remained unchanged in American children but was reversed in Italian beginning readers. In both language groups, however, phonemic segmentation ability distinguished children of different levels of reading skill. The discrepancies between the language groups were seen as reflecting phonologic and orthographic differences between the languages.
Mode use in deaf children: the effects of communication method and communication competence
Authors: Greenberg Mark T. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTThis study examined the differential mode usage (speech, vocalize, gesture and sign) of profoundly deaf preschoolers and their hearing mothers as a function of their level of communicative competence (high vs. low) and method of communication (simultaneous vs. oral). Language and mode use of twenty-eight hearing mother/deaf child dyads (equally divided into oral and simultaneous dyads) were recorded during free play. Findings indicated significant mode use differences as a result of both method of communication and level of competence within each method. Bimodal or simultaneous use of modes was related to both higher communicative competence in both oral and simultaneous children and specific pragmatic types of communication. Findings are discussed in relation to both theoretical and applied issues in understanding early childhood deafness.
Syntactic complexity and cognitive style
Authors: Kagan Dona M. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTIn Study 1, writing samples from secondary and post-secondary students were used to examine the underlying structures of 16 indices of syntactic complexity known to be related to good writing. Factor analysis revealed six syntactic dimensions: unbound description, coordination, unbound description-final position, embedding, elongation, and prepositions. Subscales were constructed to assess each dimension. The purpose of Study 2 was to examine correlations among the six syntactic dimensions and three measures of cognitive style: field-embeddedness, category width, and perceptual accuracy. A coincidence of significant correlations between nearly all of the syntactic subscales and measures of both field-independence and reflectivity indicated an association between syntactic complexity and an analytic cognitive style. Preferred styles of organization applied to verbal and to visual stimuli alike. The ability to analytically perceive spatial relationships is clearly associated with the ability to manipulate language effectively.
Dialogue with preschoolers: A cognitively-based System of assessment
Authors: Blank Marion , Franklin Eleanor 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTA System is Presented for coding and analyzing dialogue that involves preschool-age children. In the System, each participant is seen, throughout the course of a dialogue, to assume the roles of both initiator and responder. Each role is evaluated according to different scales. As initiator, a speaker's utterances are judged for their level of cognitive complexity and for their “summoning power” (i.e., for their explicitness of a demand for a response). As responder, a speaker's utterances and behaviors are judged for their appropriateness as responses to the speaker-initiator's preceding verbalizations. In assessing dialogue, the scales are interlinked so as to permit one to assess the extent and complexity of the verbal communication that is taking place between the two members of a dyad. The application of the scales is illustrated through the analysis of dialogues recorded between six mothers and their 3-year-old daughters.
Response coincidence analysis as evidence for language acquisition strategies
Authors: Baker Wm J. , Derwing Bruce L. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTNew analytical techniques were developed for the identification of subject groups based on within-subject patterns of cooccurrences of responses. These “response coincidence analyses” provided an empirical basis for conjectures about stages or strategies in terms of the rules which characterize group performances. The nature of the operative rules was inferred from an analysis of item response similarities within the subject groups. These techniques were applied to a data set originally obtained by Innes (1974) from 120 children (20 at each age from 2 to 7 years), for a study of the acquisition of the English inflectional morphology for pluralization. The results show quite clearly how the pluralization system is acquired and indicate how such data can be used to develop the specification of rules sensitive to psycholinguistic evidence.
The acquisition of /r/ and /l/ by Japanese learners of English: Evidence that speech production can precede speech perception
Authors: Sheldon Amy , Strange Winifred 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTThis study examines the relationship between the production and perception of English /r/ and /l/ by native Japanese adults learning English in the United States. For some subjects, production of the contrast was more accurate than their perception of it, replicating and extending a previous finding reported by Goto (1971) in Japan. The difficulty in perception of the liquid contrast varied with its position in the word. Prevocalic /r/ and /l/ in consonant clusters yielded the greatest perceptual errors, while word-final liquids were accurately perceived. This pattern of errors is not predictable on the basis of contrastive phonological analysis, but might be the result of acoustic-phonetic factors. Implications for second language pedagogy are discussed.
The effects of digraphs and pseudowords on phonemic segmentation in young children
Authors: Tunmer William E. , Nesdale Andrew R. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTThis research was designed to examine the possibility that beginning readers who lack phonemic segmentation ability but read words by sight resort to a “grapheme” strategy in a phoneme tapping task, tapping once for each letter in a word. While this strategy would result in correct responses to words containing as many letters as phonemes, it would lead to “overshoot” errors on words containing digraphs. However, this difference in performance should only occur with real words, since, by definition, pseudowords have not been seen before. Consistent with the hypothesis, a three-way interaction between word type, digraph type, and grade (kindergarten vs. first grade) was obtained. Further analysis revealed that some beginning readers employed a spelling strategy in performing the task.
Discrimination of intonation by hearing-impaired children
Authors: Engen Trygg , Engen Elizabeth A. , Clarkson Richard L. , Blackwell Peter M. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTEarlier research has shown that sentence intonation involves frequencies of 500 Hz or less. The present research verified the hypothesis that most hearing-impaired children whose auditory input is limited to those low frequencies do perceive differences in intonation. Their performance was influenced by their response tendencies but was clearly evident across three different acoustic listening conditions and two psychophysical tests. The educational implications of this are discussed briefly.
Phonological process occurrence in phonologically disordered children
Authors: Dunn Carla , Davis Barbara L. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTRecent research in phonological disorders has focused on phonological processes, to determine the number of children using particular processes. This study investigated individual patterns of phonological process occurrence in nine phonologically disordered children. The purpose of the study was to determine frequency of occurrence of each process for each child and frequency of occurrence of unusual processes. Results indicated that a small, basic subset of phonological processes seemed to account for the majority of errors made by these children. Unusual processes were primarily changes in word structure. Within the common framework of basic and unusual processes, the children realized the processes in unique ways.
Early instruction of object complements to hearing-impaired college students
Authors: Albertini John A. , Samar Vincent J. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTChild language acquisition studies have suggested that some object complement constructions are acquired relatively early compared to other complex constructions. Traditionally, instruction of hearing-impaired students in object complement structures is reserved for intermediate and advanced levels due to their relative syntactic complexity. However, data from 82 basic-level, hearing-impaired college students indicated marked learning of these structures after 10 hours of instruction. Upon investigation of the relative difficulty of four grammatical components of object complements (complement markers, personal pronouns, tense inflection, and word order), tense marking in the complement was found to be the most difficult. We suggest that, in addition to traditional transformational descriptions of syntactic complexity, data on first and second language acquisition be considered when deciding on a sequence of instruction for hearing-impaired students.
The social-psychological significance of bilingual code switching for children
Authors: Genesee Fred 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTThe purpose of the research was to examine children's evaluative reactions to bilingual code switching during a dyadic cross-cultural encounter. Children's reactions to code switching were elicited using a segmented dialogue technique whereby they listened to and judged each of an integrated series of speech turns one at a time in their order of occurrence. The speakers were played by English and French Canadian actors and were depicted in the roles of a salesman and a customer. English and French Canadian children were subjects. It was found that the children's evaluations of the speaker's language choices were influenced by (a) situational norms associated with appropriate salesman and customer behaviours; (b) interpersonal accommodation; and (c) ingroup favouritism, but not by sociocultural status differences between French and English. Moreover, their reactions were dynamic in that they depended upon mutual language choices by both actors and the basis of their evaluations changed from the beginning to the end of the dialogue sequence. The findings are discussed with respect to results from other developmental research using simpler elicitation techniques as well as to findings from adolescent and adult respondents.
A comparison of the effectiveness of graphic symbol and manual sign training with profoundly retarded children
Authors: Hodges Patricia , Schwethelm Bettina 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTUsing a random-block design, 52 profoundly retarded nonverbal children were matched on relevant variables and randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups or a no-treatment group. In Phase One, two groups were trained in either the Premack or NON-SLIP graphic systems. Children in the Premack group learned an average of 2.3 symbols; no child in the NON-SLIP group reached the symbol stage. In Phase Two, these two groups and a third group were taught manual signs from an American Sign Language lexicon. There were significant differences in IQ and language age from pre- to posttest, and children in the two groups exposed to both graphic symbols and signs learned significantly more signs than graphic symbols. Signing appears to be a demonstrably superior intervention for profoundly retarded nonverbal populations.
Sentence comprehension limitations related to syntactic deficits in reading-disabled children
Authors: Stein Cecile L. , Cairns Helen S. , Zurif Edgar B. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTTwenty reading-disabled children, ages 7 through 10, were compared with 20 nondisabled readers of the same age range according to their ability to interpret complex sentences. Using a relatively new metric, subjects were classified according to Grammar Type and the extent to which they obeyed the c-command constraint on control in interpreting sentences containing embedded complements with missing subjects. The results demonstrated that the nondisabled readers performed at higher levels of grammatical development than did the reading-impaired subjects; there was no effect for age. Implications are made regarding the structural nature of the syntactic deficit in the reading-disabled population studied.
Picture-naming agreement in monolingulas and biliguals
Authors: Goggin Judith P. , Estrada Patricia , Villarreal Ronald P. 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTName agreement in Spanish and English in response to 264 pictures was assessed in monolinguals and in bilinguals, who varied in rated skill in the two languages. Most of the pictures were adapted from a standardized set of line drawings of common objects (Snodgrass & Vanderwart, 1980). Name agreement decreased as language skill decreased, and agreement was lower when labels were given in Spanish rather than in English. The relationship between name agreement and word frequency, word length, and (in the case of English) age of acquisition was assessed; both word frequency and word length were found to be related to agreement. Modal responses given by monolingual subjects were nearly identical in the two languages, and the types of non-modal responses were affected by both naming language and language skill.