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The goal of this note is to offer a critical review of the contrastive analysis hypothesis within the field of second language acquisition. The notions of interlanguage, universal grammar and mental grammar are discussed. Transfer is redefined as the output of underlying rules in the grammar of a second language. Through Jackendoff’s notion of a mental grammar we reconcile the contribution of structural and generative grammar to the understanding of the phenomenon of transfer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper aims to evaluate the adequacy of two types of analysis of appositive constructions: the symmetric and asymmetric analysis. Grounded in contemporary generative grammar, it is shown that the symmetric analysis requires taking several assumptions about the nature of syntax. Thus, an asymmetric analysis is presented based on an underlying symmetric relation between both parts of the apposition. This proposal neutralizes the conceptual problems of a symmetric approach and, at the same time, permits to explain (i) the predicative nature of explicative appositions, (ii) its speaker-oriented character, (iii) the adjacency condition between both parts of appositive constructions, (iv) the presence of adverbs between both parts of the apposition, and (v) the difference on scope relations between quantifiers on both parts of the apposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Generative and systemic-functional theories may be conceived as scientific theories: they have confirmed hypotheses, they provide explanations, and based on these explanations, they make predictions. Nevertheless, both theories use incompatible assumptions about the same object: language. After analyzing the problem of confirmations and explanations in linguistics, this incompatibility will be treated in terms of "a principle of complementarity": Language is, simultaneously, a "faculty of the mind" and a "product of culture," but both aspects (the "mental" and the "cultural") cannot be captured by any single theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes to demonstrate that the Colonial grammars of Mapuche (Mapudungu(n) contain valuable information with respect to the way the original ethnia called itself, in the XVII and XVIII centuries, and inclusive even at the beginning of the XIX. Antecedents about the name of the native Soil (home country, nation) and its language are provided. Denominations still remain in the collective memory of the People of the Land, which can be verified by investigating communities in what is known as Araucanía. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]