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This article aims to propose a practical model for intra-lingual translation or "paraphrase" in another term. Paraphrase is a restatement of a text, rewording something written or spoken, especially to achieve greater clarity. This approach could help a troubled translator who is having issues translating a complex text into a receptor language by assessing the source text and reconstructing the contents in a simpler semantic structure. (Larson, 2012) Noam Chomsky's generative--transformational model (1957, 1965) and Larson's (2012) methodology have been followed to analyze sentences into a series of related levels governed by the help of several other techniques. To achieve this, firstly, the concepts; "Intralingual translation," "rewording," "paraphrasing," and "restatement" are identified and explained. Secondly, methods of rewording are unpacked, then other elements that play an essential role in paraphrasing are presented. Thirdly, steps of paraphrasing are applied to the text Taj Mahal where skewings between semantic structure and grammatical features are studied and unskewed. Lastly, a conclusion is drawn from the findings to verify the hypothesis of the paraphrase. The findings and results of rewording are also briefly discussed.

This study aims to assess the evidence regarding the relationship between previous and new schools of linguistics. According to Kuhn (1970), old linguistic paradigms incorporate vocabulary and apparatus from previous or traditional paradigms. In particular, this review addresses the Question: Do new paradigms in linguistic arise from old or previous ones, as Kuhn suggested? The study is significant in understanding emerging schools of linguistics based on previous ones. A qualitative literature review was applied to compare new and old schools of linguistics. According to the findings, there is substantial evidence that functionalism, structuralism, and Transformational-Generative Grammar support Kuhn's argument. Most notably, the changes of the transformational-generative grammar from a consistent and straightforward Standard Theory to an improved Extended Standard Theory, and finally, to the Minimalist Program, point towards the same conclusion. Interestingly, the transformations demonstrate how new paradigms arise from old paradigms without borrowing many concepts, terms, and experiments from them. This study draws the attention of linguists in the 21st Century to pay closer attention to the trends in schools of linguistics.

This study aims to analyze the syntax of serial verbs in the Punjabi language. The serial verb construction (SVC) is a widespread phenomenon across the world languages and in Punjabi as well. The SVC in Punjabi specifically is used as a full event described by two sub-events, with each event described by a separate verb coming together in a sequence. It shows that two different events have their own individuality during overall event. This study is descriptive in nature and a naturalistic methodology is adopted for detailed categorization of SVC in Punjabi. The study shows how the two types of SVCs in Punjabi are completely different from Complex Predicates (CPs) because each SVC contains two VPs but only one V whereas the complex predicate constructions have only one VP but two Vs. The study also shows that the relationship between two verbs/VPs is that of adjunction but not complementation (or coordination). Since this study explores the Indo-Aryan languages which are facing the dearth of linguistic research, it is going to be a useful contribution to the domain of serial verb constructions cross-linguistically. It will also be helpful to draw a line between SVCs and CP formations in the Punjabi language.

Representing the base-10 structure of numbers is a challenging cognitive ability, unique to humans, but it is yet unknown how precisely this is done. Here, we examined whether and how literate adults represent a number's full syntactic structure. In 5 experiments, participants repeated number-word sequences and we systematically varied the order of words within each sequence. Repetition on grammatical sequences (e.g., two hundred ninety-seven) was better than on non-grammatical ones (hundred seven two ninety). We conclude that the participants represented the number's full syntactic structure and used it to merge number words into chunks in short-term memory. Accuracy monotonously improved for sequences with increasingly longer grammatical segments, up to a limit of [approximately] 4 words per segment, irrespectively of the number of digits, and worsened thereafter. Namely, short chunks improved memorization, whereas oversized chunks disrupted memorization. This chunk size limit suggests that the chunks are not based on predefined structures, whose size limit is not expected to be so low, but are created ad hoc by a generative process, such as the hierarchical syntactic representation hypothesized in Michael McCloskey's number-processing model. Chunking occurred even when it disrupted performance, as in the oversized chunks, and even when external cues for chunking were controlled for or were removed. We conclude that the above generative process operates automatically rather than voluntarily. To date, this is the most detailed account of the core representation of the syntactic structure of numbers--a critical aspect of numerical literacy and of the ability to read and write numbers.

Negation is a universal component of human language; polarity sensitivity (i.e., lexical distributional constraints in relation to negation) is arguably so while being pervasive across languages. Negation has long been a field of inquiry in psychological theories and experiments of reasoning, which inspired many follow-up studies of negation and negation-related phenomena in psycholinguistics. In generative theoretical linguistics, negation and polarity sensitivity have been extensively studied, as the related phenomena are situated at the interfaces of syntax, semantics and pragmatics, and are thus extremely revealing about the architecture of grammar. With the now long tradition of research on negation and polarity in psychology and psycholinguistics, and the emerging field of experimental semantics and pragmatics, a multitude of interests and experimental paradigms have emerged which call for re-evaluations and further development and integration. This special issue contains a collection of 16 research articles on the processing of negation and negation-related phenomena including polarity items, questions, conditionals, and irony, using a combination of behavioral (e.g., rating, reading, eye-tracking and sentence completion) and neuroimaging techniques (e.g., EEG). They showcase the processing of negation and polarity with or without context, in various languages and across different populations (adults, typically developing and ADHD children). The integration of multiple theoretical and empirical perspectives in this collection provides new insights, methodological advances and directions for future research.

Saussure proposed the division language/parole and argued that language can be studied as a formal system. Fifty years later Chomsky declared competence the core interest of linguistics. Although for years Generative second language acquisition (GenSLA) has adopted this view, a number of recent publications poke holes into the competence bubble. Westergaard's article is among those that pushes the boundaries of Generative Grammar (GG). In our commentary, we propose that Westergaard's Micro-cue Model (McM) and the Linguistic Proximity Model (LPM) may actually be closer to a Usage-Based Approach (UbA) to language development than to the original spirit of GG, and that Westergaard's sound, evidence-based proposals face some drag by being presented under the aegis of GG. Specifically, the assumption that all learning derives from general cognitive processes--hence, no essential difference between L1, L2, and Ln; the use of cues that are emergent and acquired piecemeal, and the idea that language development proceeds from the specific to the general, are all hallmarks of the UbA. We believe Westergaard's contribution is important and timely and should encourage a better appreciation of the work being done in other domains as well as an understanding of how the different approaches complement each other.

This study aims to investigate the structure according to the order of the elements in the Turkish sentence and to determine the possible sentences that are produced according to this structure. In order to examine the possible sentences, the question raised is: "How many possible canonical clauses (regular), inverted sentences (irregular) and elliptical (incomplete) sentences in Turkish can be created?" There are 24 possible sentences in canonical structure in which the position of the verb is fixed and other elements change positions. Inverted sentences are grouped under four groups: hence, there are 96 sentences. Elliptical sentence is formed with the reduction of one or more elements from the sentence and there are 205 possible sentences in elliptical sentence structure. No structural changes or affixes occur in the words that form the sentence. The same words are used in the same structure. As a conclusion, it is found out that the total number of possible canonical and inverted sentences are 24+24+24+24+24=120 and the number of elliptical sentences are 5+20+60+120=205. This indicates that we can form (24+96+205=325) 325 possible sentences in Turkish.

This article proposes a formal model of the human language faculty that accommodates the possibility of 'attrition' (modification or loss) of morphosyntactic properties in a first language. Modeling L1 grammatical attrition entails a quite fundamental paradox: if the structure of the language faculty in principle allows for attrition of morphosyntax, why is it apparently so heavily constrained and rarely attested? We demonstrate that the attrition paradox can be resolved with a model that integrates a formally explicit generative grammar (eschewing classical parameters in favor of functional feature assemblies; see Chomsky, 2000, 2001) into a generalized model of language acquisition that decouples linguistic input from acquisitional intake (following Lidz and Gagliardi, 2015). This implementation makes specific predictions about the input and intake conditions that favor and disfavor L1 attrition. We explore these predictions for one of the most widely studied areas of attrition, namely the realization of pronominals.

This article has two main goals. The first is to summarize and comment on the current state of affairs of generative approaches to SLA (GenSLA), 35 years into its history. This discussion brings the readership of SSLA up to date on the questions driving GenSLA agendas and clears up misconceptions about what GenSLA does and does not endeavor to explain. We engage key questions, debates, and shifts within GenSLA such as focusing on the deterministic role of input in language acquisition, as well as expanding the inquiry to new populations and empirical methodologies and technologies used. The second goal is to highlight the place of GenSLA in the broader field of SLA. We argue that various theories of SLA are needed, showing that many existing SLA paradigms are much less mutually exclusive than commonly believed (cf. Rothman & VanPatten, 2013; Slabakova, Leal, & Liskin-Gasparro, 2014, 2015; VanPatten & Rothman, 2014)--especially considering their different foci and research questions.

One hundred nine college students participated in an experiment that involved reading a passage and responding to a 20-item multiple choice test. The students were randomly assigned to one of four groups. The four conditions involved reading and copying, reading and highlighting, reading and taking notes, and reading and generating questions. Students who generated questions performed better than two of the three other groups on the test. The authors attributed this improved performance to generative learning. (Contains 2 tables and 2 figures.)

This article assumes the value of a scientifically grounded, rhetorically focused, professionally supported, and publicly embraced grammar within the public schools and examines the past century of practices within the United States from that perspective. It describes a brief renaissance in the 50's and early 60's, inspired largely by the structural grammar of C. C Fries, and examines the confluence of forces that brought that budding change to an abrupt close--the ascendancy of generative grammar, NCTE policy, including the 1963 Braddock report and the 1986 Hillocks update, whole language approaches to language acquisition, the ascendancy of process approaches within composition, the primacy of literature within English curriculums at all levels, minimalist grammar and its anti-knowledge stance, political pressures against the imposition of an elitist language, a general lack of preparation for those in the teaching profession, and a general public failure to recognize grammar as anything but a loose collection of prescriptive mandates. The authors describe the various factions currently allied against grammar, though often at odds with each other. They describe current pressures for change, including a more widespread recognition that ignoring grammar has been a failure and articulate concerns about highly reductive testing practices in the absence of a more sophisticated curriculum. They describe the shape a successful reintegration of grammar would have to take to accommodate the concerns of those currently opposed. (Contains 2 footnotes.)

Formal theories of mental representation have receded from the importance they had in the early days of cognitive science. I argue that such theories are crucial in any mental domain, not just for their own sake, but to guide experimental inquiry, as well as to integrate the domain into the mind as a whole. To illustrate the criteria of adequacy for theories of mental representation, I compare two theoretical approaches to language: classical generative grammar (Chomsky, 1965, 1981, 1995) and the parallel architecture (Jackendoff, 1997, 2002). The grounds for comparison include (a) the internal coherence of the theory across phonology, syntax, and semantics; (b) the relation of language to other mental faculties; (c) the relationship between grammar and lexicon; (d) relevance to theories of language processing; and (e) the possibility of languages with little or no syntax.

The extensive literature on subject expression in Spanish makes for rich comparisons between generative (formal) and usage-based (functional) approaches to language acquisition. This article explores how the problem of subject expression has been conceptualized within each research tradition, as well as unanswered questions that both approaches must consider in order to strengthen and refine their positions. The discussion focuses on convergence between the approaches, which stems from the contemporary interest in the syntax-pragmatics interface and some methodological overlap that results from a joint focus on discourse data.

We study the learnability problem concerning the dative alternations in English (Baker, 1979; Pinker, 1989). We consider how first language learners productively apply the double-object and to-dative constructions ("give the book to library"/"give the library the book"), while excluding negative exceptions ("donate the book to the library"/"*donate the library the book"). Our solution for first language acquisition is based on The Tolerance Principle, a formal model that detects productivity from the distributional properties of the input data (Yang, 2005, 2016). This principle predicts an acquisition stage where the constructions are productive, followed by a stage where learners retreat from overgeneralization and form more finely grained rules. This work calls for a formally rigorous model of acquisition, which can incorporate input effects and retain the benefits of an abstract generative grammar without resorting to piecemeal learning. We provide an analysis of child-directed speech in the CHILDES database to support the learning proposal for first language acquisition, while considering its potential applicability to second language (L2) acquisition and first language (L1) attrition.

I review the classic literature in generative grammar and Marr's three-level program for cognitive science to defend the Evaluation Metric as a psychological theory of language learning. Focusing on well-established facts of language variation, change, and use, I argue that optimal statistical principles embodied in Bayesian inference models are ill-suited for language acquisition. Specific attention will be given to the Subset Problem: Indirect negative evidence, which can be attractively formulated in the Bayesian framework, is ineffective when the statistical properties of language are examined in detail. As an alternative, I suggest that the Tolerance Principle (Yang 2016) provides a unified solution for the problem of induction and generalization: It bridges the computational and algorithm levels in Marr's formulation, while retaining the commitment to the formal and empirical constraints in child language development.

Generative approaches to language have long recognized the natural link between theories of knowledge representation and theories of knowledge acquisition. The basic idea is that the knowledge representations provided by Universal Grammar enable children to acquire language as reliably as they do because these representations highlight the relevant aspects of the available linguistic data. So, one reasonable evaluation of any theory of representation is how useful it is for acquisition. This means that when we have multiple theories for how knowledge is represented, we can try to evaluate these theoretical options by seeing how children might use them during acquisition. Computational models of the acquisition process are an effective tool for determining this, since they allow us to incorporate the assumptions of a representation into a cognitively plausible learning scenario and see what happens. We can then identify which representations work for acquisition and what those representations need to work. This in turn allows us to refine both our theories of how knowledge is represented and how those representations are used by children during acquisition. I discuss two case studies of this approach for representations in metrical stress and syntax and consider what we learn from this computational acquisition evaluation in each domain.

The present study investigated children's early use of verb inflection in Japanese by comparing a generativist account, which predicts that the past tense will have a special default-like status for the child during the early stages, with a constructivist input-driven account, which assumes that children's acquisition and use of inflectional forms reflects verb-specific distributional patterns in their input. Analysis of naturalistic data from four Japanese children aged 1;5 to 2;10 showed that there was substantial by-verb variation in the use of inflectional forms from the earliest stages of verb use, and no general preference for past tense forms. Correlational and partial correlational analyses showed that it was possible to predict the proportional frequency with which the child produced verbs in past tense versus other inflectional forms on the basis of differences in the proportional frequency with which the verb occurred in past tense form in the child's input, even after controlling for differences in the rate at which verbs occurred in past tense form in input averaged across the caregivers of the other children in the sample. When taken together, these results count against the idea that the past tense has a special default-like status in early child Japanese, and in favour of a constructivist input-driven account of children's early use of verb inflection.

This paper focuses on the study of markedness theory in Universal Grammar (UG) and its implications in Second Language Acquisition (SLA), showing that the language learners should consciously compare and contrast the similarities and differences between his native language and target language, which will facilitate their learning. (Contains 2 figures.)

This paper reports progress in developing a computer model of language acquisition in the form of (1) a generative grammar that is (2) algorithmically learnable from realistic corpus data, (3) viable in its large-scale quantitative performance and (4) psychologically real. First, we describe new algorithmic methods for unsupervised learning of generative grammars from raw CHILDES data and give an account of the generative performance of the acquired grammars. Next, we summarize findings from recent longitudinal and experimental work that suggests how certain statistically prominent structural properties of child-directed speech may facilitate language acquisition. We then present a series of new analyses of CHILDES data indicating that the desired properties are indeed present in realistic child-directed speech corpora. Finally, we suggest how our computational results, behavioral findings, and corpus-based insights can be integrated into a next-generation model aimed at meeting the four requirements of our modeling framework.

Competence-based theories of island effects play a central role in generative grammar, yet the graded nature of many syntactic islands has never been properly accounted for. Categorical syntactic accounts of island effects have persisted in spite of a wealth of data suggesting that island effects are not categorical in nature and that nonstructural manipulations that leave island structures intact can radically alter judgments of island violations. We argue here, building on work by Paul Deane, Robert Kluender, and others, that processing factors have the potential to account for this otherwise unexplained variation in acceptability judgments. We report the results of self-paced reading experiments and controlled acceptability studies that explore the relationship between processing costs and judgments of acceptability. In each of the three self-paced reading studies, the data indicate that the processing cost of different types of island violations can be significantly reduced to a degree comparable to that of nonisland filler-gap constructions by manipulating a single nonstructural factor. Moreover, this reduction in processing cost is accompanied by significant improvements in acceptability. This evidence favors the hypothesis that island-violating constructions involve numerous processing pressures that aggregate to drive processing difficulty above a threshold, resulting in unacceptability. We examine the implications of these findings for the grammar of filler-gap dependencies.

In an attempt to explain first language attrition in emigrant populations, this paper investigates the explanatory power of a framework that has--until now--received little attention: the regression hypothesis (Jakobson, 1941). This hypothesis predicts that the order of attrition is the reverse of the order of acquisition. The regression hypothesis was tested in relation to the loss of morphology and syntax in Dutch immigrants in Anglophone Canada. Evidence in favor of regression was found, but mainly in the morphological domain. Syntax, on the other hand, was mostly characterized by L2 influences from English. As it is problematic to treat regression as a theory in its own right, these findings are then explained in the light of both generative and usage-based approaches, as well as the more recent Dynamic Systems Theory. (Contains 5 footnotes and 5 tables.)

The production of verbal operants not previously taught is an important aspect of language productivity. For Skinner, new mands, tacts, and autoclitics result from the recombination of verbal operants. The relation between these mands, tacts, and autoclitics is what linguists call "analogy," a grammatical pattern that serves as a foundation on which a speaker might emit new linguistic forms. Analogy appears in linguistics as a regularity principle that characterizes language and has been related to how languages change and also to creativity. The approaches of neogrammarians like Hermann Paul, as well as those of Jespersen and Bloomfield, appear to have influenced Skinner's understanding of verbal creativity. Generalization and stimulus equivalence are behavioral processes related to the generative grammatical behavior described in the analogy model. Linguistic forms and grammatical patterns described in analogy are part of the contingencies of reinforcement that produce generalization and stimulus equivalence. The analysis of verbal behavior needs linguistic analyses of the constituents of linguistic forms and their combination patterns. (Contains 1 table.)

Riemer (2009) complains that a large number of sentences, despite appearing to be acceptable to many native speakers of English--including himself--are treated as ungrammatical in recent works that subscribe to the generative approach to (the English) language. In his opinion, this need not be considered "as evidence of an overly narrow evidentiary base", but rather as proof "of the predictive failure of current generative syntactic models". He claims that this conclusion is to be reached by eliminating the grammaticality/acceptability contrast, which is related to the opposition between I-language and E-language, respectively. In addition, he discusses the role of intuition in generative linguistics and the empirical status of Chomskyan linguistics as Galilean linguistics, although this discussion proceeds through contradictory assertions and in the end is revealed as having no significance for the general purpose of the argument. In this brief reply to Riemer I intend to show (1) that even if a huge proportion of "(bad) starred sentences" (i.e. wrongly starred as ungrammatical) are judged to be grammatical by however many native speakers of a language, this proves nothing about the predictive failure of generative linguistics, since autonomous linguistics has (and cannot have) any predictive character at all. Rather, it is useful for proving the relevance of speakers' intuitions as the only legitimate evidence for grammatical theorization and description; (2) that it is not sound--because it brings neither theoretical nor descriptive profit--to eliminate the distinction between grammaticality and acceptability; this must be maintained, although not in relation to the opposition between I-language and E-language but with respect to the Coserian distinction between linguistic and expressive knowledge; and (3) that Chomskyan linguistics is not an empirical science and thus cannot be legitimately called Galilean linguistics.

Standard criticisms of unjustified grammaticality assignments in generative syntax are easily countered by reminders that grammaticality is a different notion from acceptability. In response, the criticisms are reformulated here in a way that interprets unjustified assignments as possible evidence of the predictive failure of current generative syntactic models, and not, as is standard, as evidence of an overly narrow evidentiary base. This is argued to invalidate appeals to the grammaticality/acceptability contrast, showing that the persistent anxieties about intuitive grammaticality assignments in generative methodology withstand the stock Chomskian defence. It is argued that if grammaticality assignments are as unreliable as critics of generativism often claim, their use conflicts with both the obvious theoretical goal of Minimalist syntax, and with its orientation as "Galilean" science.

This rejoinder demonstrates that Lopez-Serena's [Lopez-Serena, A., 2009. "Intuition, acceptability and grammaticality: a reply to Riemer." "Language Sciences" 31, 634-648] critique of Riemer [Riemer, N., 2009. "Grammaticality as evidence and as prediction in a Galilean linguistics." "Language Sciences" 31, 612-633] is unfounded. LS's critique is characterized by errors of fact and interpretation, a failure to distinguish positions which are being conceded from those being argued, and an arbitrary redefinition of the terms of the debate. Furthermore, LS's conceptions of intuition and scientificity, which motivate her criticisms, prove to be highly problematic.

Using computers to help students practice and learn grammatical constructions goes back to the earliest days of computer-assisted language learning (CALL). With the coming of the Internet age, CALL began to focus more heavily on the new capabilities of group connectivity and computer-mediated communication. More recently, a gathering consensus has emerged that for adult learners, at least, an awareness of forms and rules is a vital component of online language learning. Compared to the nature of earlier grammar-oriented applications, however, there is recognition today that a focus on form should not be an isolated, stand-alone activity but rather should be integrated into a communication-centered, networked language learning environment. The expectation today is that programs will guide students to pay attention to forms and structures, to gain facility in their use, and to extend their language knowledge/usage to more complex constructions. Stated succinctly, grammar exercises need to be integrated, intelligent, and innovative. Fortunately, technology developments and creative language professionals are moving down this path. Recent trends in intelligent language tutors (ILT) are quite promising, despite the multiple challenges of natural language processing (NLP). Having over-promised and underachieved in the past, developers of ILT (also known as ICALL, intelligent CALL, or parser-based CALL) have mostly narrowed their ambitions and scope, resulting in actually deployed systems rather than just research prototypes. In this article, the author discusses the latest tools and strategies for developing intelligent language tutors (ILT's). He explains how grammar exercises that focus on form need to be "integrated, intelligent, and innovative."

Lardiere's keynote article adverts to a succession of "units of comparison" that have been employed in the study of cross-linguistic differences, including mid-twentieth-century structural patterns, generative grammar's parameters, and (within contemporary Minimalism) features. This commentary expands on the idea of units of cross-linguistic comparison, first by developing Lardiere's observations about recent scholarship and, second, by identifying some earlier reflexes of the notion. I close by suggesting that thinking about "units of comparison" across time prepares us to better appreciate a feature-based conceptualization of L2 acquisition, and its likely trajectory.

We introduce a computational theory of situated language understanding in which the meaning of words and utterances depends on the physical environment and the goals and plans of communication partners. According to the theory, concepts that ground linguistic meaning are neither internal nor external to language users, but instead span the objective-subjective boundary. To model the possible interactions between subject and object, the theory relies on the notion of perceived affordances: structured units of interaction that can be used for prediction at multiple levels of abstraction. Language understanding is treated as a process of filtering perceived affordances. The theory accounts for many aspects of the situated nature of human language use and provides a unified solution to a number of demands on any theory of language understanding including conceptual combination, prototypicality effects, and the generative nature of lexical items.

This paper argues against the view of intrusive [r] as a synchronically arbitrary insertion process. Instead, it is seen as a phonologically natural process, which can be modelled within the framework of Optimality Theory (OT). Insertion of [r] in phonologically restricted environments is a consequence of a more general theory of consonant epenthesis outlined here. This theory ties epenthesis in with the notion of prominence and strives to formalize a general theory of epenthesis which explains why glottal stops and glides are crosslinguistically frequently found epenthetic consonants, although in different prosodic contexts. I argue that glottal stops are optimal margin consonants and thus inserted in margin positions (e.g. word-initially) while glides are optimal peak consonants, inserted in peak positions (e.g. as hiatus breakers). This hypothesis is derived from sonority-based prominence scales [Prince, A., Smolensky, P., 1993. "Optimality Theory: Constraint Interaction in Generative Grammar." Ms. Rutgers University and the University of Colorado at Boulder]. Intrusive [r] can then be understood as the optimal consonant in a peak position when glide formation is blocked, because [r] is the most sonorous possible element in this position. Spreading-based or perceptually grounded accounts of intrusive [r] are consequently rejected under this approach. (Contains 2 figures.)

Each language is a unique tool for analyzing and synthesizing the world, incorporating the knowledge and values of a speech community. According to Sapir (1931), linguistic "categories [including] number, gender, case, tense, mode, voice, "aspect", and a host of others ... are not so much discovered in experience as imposed upon it." Thus to lose such a tool is to "forget" a way of constructing reality, to blot out a perspective evolved over many generations. Who can say whether a concept that evolved in one language would never have evolved in another? The extreme version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis--that perception and cognition are determined by the structure of whatever language one happens to speak--has been demolished by Chomskyan linguistics (see Pinker 1994: 59-63). But the central arguments of the thesis is still strongly visible in the current approaches of conceptual semantics developed by Jackendoff and others which can be fruitfully used to understand the conceptual loss of indigenous knowledge system in the speakers of any endangered language over a period of time. The recent developments in the area of acquisition and analysis of endangered language data have fruitfully accommodated both the radical version of Whorfian thought and mentalist approaches of generative grammar. What is most important and theoretically provocative is to look for conceptual continuity in the available data from a very small number of speakers using any one of the frameworks. What has remained and in still in circulation as the basic primitive concepts of an endangered speech community are diluted in a scenario of imposed multilingualism and other bio-sociological reasons that may not be linguistic per se. Is it possible to recover these primitives from the very detailed analysis of the lexicographic structures? In this paper, what the author would like to argue for is the hypothesis that conceptual structures of a language that has long lost its proficient users can never be relocated completely and satisfactorily by eliciting linguistic data how much vigorous and technically sound that activity may be. To support the claim data from speakers Great Andamanese vocabulary will be provided and tentative analysis will be put forward as still the work is in progress. (Contains 3 tables.)

Two types of sentence-level writing problems are often observed in student writing: (1) those that violate conventions of standard written English, such as subject-verb agreement errors and comma splices; and (2) those that involve a stylistic choice, such as beginning a sentence with an expletive structure like "There are" or using "if" rather than "whether". Although more readers are bothered by the first type of deficiency than by the second, readers who are bothered by either will often focus at least momentarily on the writing rather than concentrating on the message, thereby increasing the opportunity for miscommunication. Leonard and Gilsdorf (1990), Gilsdorf and Leonard (2001), and Beason (2001) have reported on readers' reactions to various types of sentence-level deficiencies. This article complements studies reported in Quible (2004, 2006) by presenting five instructional techniques used to help students overcome sentence-level writing deficiencies by correcting certain mistakes marked on their papers. Each of the techniques (Tracking System; Error Identification; Class Mark-Up; Editing Buddy; Exercises) requires that students identify and label deficiencies, especially those that violate the conventions of standard English. (Contains 3 figures.)

We present a set-theoretic model of the mental representation of classically quantified sentences (All P are Q, Some P are Q, Some P are not Q, and No P are Q). We take inclusion, exclusion, and their negations to be primitive concepts. We show that although these sentences are known to have a diagrammatic expression (in the form of the Gergonne circles) that constitutes a semantic representation, these concepts can also be expressed syntactically in the form of algebraic formulas. We hypothesized that the quantified sentences have an abstract underlying representation common to the formulas and their associated sets of diagrams (models). We derived 9 predictions (3 semantic, 2 pragmatic, and 4 mixed) regarding people's assessment of how well each of the 5 diagrams expresses the meaning of each of the quantified sentences. We report the results from 3 experiments using Gergonne's (1817) circles or an adaptation of Leibniz (1903/1988) lines as external representations and show them to support the predictions.

Two construals of agency are evaluated as possible innate biases guiding case-marking in children. A BROAD construal treats agentive arguments of multi-participant and single-participant events as being similar. A NARROWER construal is restricted to agents of multi-participant events. In Hindi, ergative case-marking is associated with agentive participants of multi-participant, perfective actions. Children relying on a broad or narrow construal of agent are predicted to overextend ergative case-marking to agentive participants of transitive imperfective actions and/or intransitive actions. Longitudinal data from three children acquiring Hindi (1;7 to 3;9) reveal no overextension errors, suggesting early sensitivity to distributional patterns in the input.

This article presents an empirical and theoretical critique of the Matrix Language Frame (MLF) model (Myers-Scotton, 1993; Myers-Scotton and Jake, 2001), and includes a response to Jake, Myers-Scotton and Gross's (2002) (JMSG) critique of MacSwan (1999, 2000) and reactions to their revision of the MLF model as a "modified minimalist approach." The author argues that although a new structural definition of the Matrix Language (ML) makes the MLF model falsifiable, its empirical predictions are inconsistent with the facts of codeswitching (CS). The author also identifies significant theoretical problems associated with the MLF model, and suggests that it be rejected on empirical and theoretical grounds, and on grounds of scientific parsimony. In addition, the author contends that JMSG's critique of the Minimalist approach to CS rests on conceptually significant misreadings of published research in CS and in the theory of syntax, and that JMSG fail to motivate their central claim, namely, that a Minimalist approach to CS cannot succeed without incorporating the ML construct. It is further shown that an analysis of the CS facts which JMSG consider as their test case may be straightforwardly pursued within the Minimalist Program without appealing to the ML construct or any other aspect of the MLF model. The author concludes with the recommendation that research on CS depart from the formulation of general CS-specific constraints like the MLF model and engage in the task of analyzing language contact phenomena in terms of independently motivated constructs of linguistic theory.

In a recent paper [Lidz, J., Gleitman, H., & Gleitman, L. (2003). Understanding how input matters: Verb learning and the footprint of universal grammar. "Cognition," 87, 151-178], we provided cross-linguistic evidence in favor of the following linked assertions: (i) Verb argument structure is a correlate of verb meaning; (ii) However, argument structure is not directly available to learners as a cue for reconstructing verb meaning, owing to the complexity of form-meaning mappings within and across languages; (iii) A major correlate of argument-structure, namely, noun phrase number, is statistically available on the surface in all languages, and serves as a quasi-universal derivative cue to the meanings of verbs; (iv) this cue is "privileged," in the sense that it is used early and selectively by learners, despite within- and cross-language differences in its availability. Goldberg [Goldberg, A. (2004). But do we need Universal Grammar? Comment on Lidz, Gleitman and Gleitman 2003. "Cognition"] suggests that this cue is not linguistic, that it is too sicklied o'er with exceptions and provisos to be useful to learners, and that conversational conspiracies can in any case serve as the alternative theoretical framework for a theory of predicate learning, and language acquisition more generally. In the present reply, we review and further explicate our original position, to wit: A large part of any generative grammar is a formal statement of the complex alignments between predicate-argument structures and the surface forms (linear strings of words) of sentences. Because the several rules for alignment interact, the surface outcomes reveal individual systematicities only abstractly. Therefore, learning would be impossible if infants could not analyze probabilistically available patterns to recover their principled linguistic sources. This statistics-based discovery procedure is in certain relevant regards specific to language learning. Finally, we argue that while pragmatics and theory of mind properties in learner and tutor necessarily frame language acquisition, that these have not been shown--and probably cannot be shown--to be sufficient to this computational problem.

Four different kinds of grammars that can define crossing dependencies in human language are compared here: (1) "context sensitive rewrite" grammars with rules that depend on context; (2) "matching" grammars with constraints that filter the generative structure of the language; (3) "copying" grammars which can copy structures of unbounded size; and (4) "generating" grammars in which crossing dependencies are generated from a finite lexical basis. Context sensitive rewrite grammars are syntactically, semantically and computationally unattractive. Generating grammars have a collection of nice properties that ensure they define only ''mildly context sensitive'' languages, and Joshi has proposed that human languages have those properties too. But for certain distinctive kinds of crossing dependencies in human languages, copying or matching analyses predominate. Some results relevant to the viability of mildly context sensitive analyses and some open questions are reviewed.