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This article brings forth a possible teaching paradigm that re-evaluates the pedagogical benefits of teaching translation techniques to business students. While rejecting the one-sided structural/grammatical translation method, we propose a model based on the Lexical Approach which draws on the lexical, paradigmatic, as well as syntagmatic equivalence between the source language and the target language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article outlines a nonlinear dynamic systems approach to language learning on the basis of developmental cognitive neuroscience. Language learning, on this view, is a process of experience-dependent shaping and selection of broadly defined domain-general and domain-specific genetic predispositions. The central concept of development is (neuro)cognitive growth in terms of self-organization. Linguistic structure-building is synergetic and emergent insofar as the acquisition of a critical mass of elements on a local level (e.g., words) results in the emergence of novel qualities and units on a macroscopic level (e.g., syntax). We argue that language development does not take a linear path but comes in phases of intermittent turbulence, fluctuation, and stability, along a “chaotic itinerary”. We review qualitative, quantitative and computational applications of this concept in the lexical, morphological, and syntactic domain. We identify as the most significant property of the dynamic approach the temporal nature of language learning. As a medium-term forecast we anticipate a further diversification of the dynamic approach, an increase in more formal approaches, and a stronger interest in issues of embodiment and embeddedness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent literature on adverb positioning is roughly divided between two theoretical camps, one of which claims that adverbs are licensed in spec positions by empty functional heads (Cinque, 1999), the other taking adverbs as adjoined and licensed largely by semantically based principles (Ernst, 2002). This paper defends the latter view, presenting two sets of evidence. First, the syntactic approach invoking functional heads holds that certain aspects of an adverb''s meaning are encoded in the functional heads, such as the different scopes of frequency adverbs, e.g. in Texans often drink beer versus Texans drink beer often. It is shown that this approach to adverb meaning leads to significant redundancy and great difficulties in representing adverb semantics in a coherent way. Second, while the functional-head theory does account for the normal order of subject-oriented adverbs and negation (She probably didn’t leave versus *She didn’t probably leave), the existence of exceptional cases where adverbs may follow negation requires this theory to adopt a semantically based explanation (invoking the adverbs’ status as positive polarity items) in any case. As a result, its original account of subject-oriented adverbs is redundant. For both sets of evidence, the semantically based theory handles the data easily: scope and related patterns are predicted by its basic semantic principles, and the polarity explanation for the second set also fits naturally into this framework without redundancy. Thus, the two phenomena provide evidence for the semantically based theory. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Background: Although research into agrammatism has done much to characterise the nature of the underlying disorder, most studies have analysed elicited, task-based data. As a result, little is known about the grammar that people with agrammatism use in everyday talk with habitual conversational partners. There is evidence in the Conversation Analysis (CA) literature to suggest that conversational grammar may not mirror the grammar of elicited language samples. Aims: To explore the notion that conversation and task-based data do not necessarily reveal the same grammatical phenomena, addressing the following questions: (1) What resources does a speaker with agrammatism make use of in order to construct a turn at talk? (2) Is the conversational grammar of a speaker with agrammatism organised in a systematic way? (3) What is the relationship between patterns of turn construction in conversation and the grammatical characteristics of output elicited by decontextualised language tests? Methods & Procedures: A videotaped conversation between an agrammatic speaker and his adult daughter is analysed using CA. Four recurring turn construction formats are described and illustrated with extracts. Background information on the client presents the results of picture-naming and sentence production tests. Outcomes & Results: There is great variation between the grammar of conversation and test data. Test results reveal a severe problem with verb access and sentence construction, with ability declining sharply as the number of verb arguments increases. However, the speaker deploys interactional alternatives to standard grammatical structures, and it is possible for him to recount events without explicit articulation of verbs and argument structures, using a combination of talk and mime. Only a minority of his conversational utterances are concerned with recounting events - commenting, assessing, and reasoning are highly prevalent. Conclusions: Conversation and sentence-level tests provide complementary but essentially different information about grammatical ability. This implies that assessment of conversational grammar should become a routine part of any investigation of agrammatism in order to gain a more complete picture of an individual's ability to impose structural order on their talk, and to explore implications for successful interaction with others. Currently, approaches to assessment and intervention over-emphasise events. In conversation, other actions such as giving an opinion are just as prevalent. Findings suggest a mismatch between what appears problematic on testing and what is treated as problematic by the interactants in conversation, and that intervention might profitably seek to address grammatical difficulties that have a basis in interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to analyse two different text types within a discourse functional framework, in order to determine whether there is a difference in their formal realizations of new and known topics. This will be done by investigating how introductory and given topics are realized in clause structure in a sample of sixty news items and tourist brochures. In line with Biber, I have assumed that linguistic features vary with communicative purpose and topic. The results of the analysis carried out seem to conflict with Dik's claim that the new topics tend to be located towards the final slot of the clause. The study also shows that these two text types differ in terms of how the known topics are realized syntactically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Complex noun phrases crosslinguistically contain meaningless elements whose sole function is to serve as linkers of predicates to their subjects—thus, Mandarin Chinese de links inverted AP predicates to their subjects as well as possessors, PPs, relative clauses, and noun-complement clauses (e.g., the claim that John was asleep). Taking a comparative analysis of French de and Thai t h îi as its point of departure, this paper argues for a maximally generalized account of the noun phrases in which linkers occur, in terms of DP-internal Predicate Inversion. This approach prompts an analysis of relative-clause constructions that recognizes relative clauses as predicates of DP-internal small clauses, combining the attractions of the traditional approach and the Vergnaud/Kayne raising approach by assigning relative clauses an internal structure similar to the traditional one while giving it the external distribution of a predicate by treating it as the predicate of a noun-phrase-internal small clause. For noun-complement clauses, the approach leads to a revitalization of Stowell's (1981) predication approach to the relationship between the head noun and the clause, the latter serving as the former's subject in a DP-contained small-clause structure. A uniform linker approach to French de, Thai t h îi, Mandarin Chinese de, Japanese no, and so on (a) emphasizes the pervasiveness of Predicate Inversion in the noun phrase, (b) confirms the role of linkers as purely functional aides to the inversion operation, (c) furthers our understanding of the structure and derivation of complex noun phrases, and (d) presents a particularly interesting window on microparametric variation in the syntax of noun phrases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most linguistic theories since have hypothesized that long-distance dependencies crossing multiple clauses are mediated by intermediate structures. This paper provides a new source of evidence for the existence of such intermediate structures: reading times during online sentence comprehension. The experiment presented here compares reading times for two structures involving the long-distance extraction of a wh-filler: (a) a structure in which a clause intervenes between the endpoints of the extraction, and (b) a structure in which a nominalization of the clause intervenes. The logic of the experiment relies on two hypotheses: first, that intermediate structures mediate the relationship between a wh-filler and its θ-role-assigning verb when a clause intervenes between them but not when a nominalization intervenes; and second, that reading times for a word increase as linear distance increases between the word and the position on which it is dependent in the partial structure for the input ( ; ). In combination, these hypotheses predict that reading times at the region in which the verb assigns a θ-role to the wh-filler will be faster in the clausal conditions than in the nominalized conditions, because in the clausal conditions intermediate structure mediate the wh-filler verb dependency and cause it to be more local. This prediction was confirmed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper defends three interconnected claims: (a) selection is the only licensing procedure available to UG, specifically, checking is an instance of selection; (b) selection obtains in the mutual c-command configuration; and (c) though a head does not mutually c-command its own specifier, it mutually c-commands the specifier of its complement. A head may therefore license the specifier of its complement (as well as its complement) but not its own specifier (it is not local enough). This effectively eliminates the spec-head configuration from the repertoire of syntactic configurations, in favor of a unified notion of locality strictly identifiable with mutual c-command, a symmetric configuration. The discussion shows that a theory that collapses these distinctions remains empirically discriminating. The resulting theory is therefore genuinely reductionist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article will report on a small-scale study which focuses on the analysis' of connectors (conjunctions and discourse markers) in thematic position in English translations of Spanish tourist literature. The concept of 'theme' adopted here draws on the explicit descriptions provided by systemic grammar (Halliday 1985). The study will be carried out on a corpus composed of 'comparable texts' (Baker 1998; Laviosa 1997) (texts written in English and texts in English translated from Spanish) and of the corresponding Spanish source texts. Following Francis (1989, 1990), Fries (1995) and Ghadessy (1995) among others, it is argued here that the analysis of patterns of theme selection provide important insights into the writing and, therefore, translation of a specific genre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article argues that Norwegian psychological verbs that superficially seem to belong to one homogenous group of Object Experiencer verbs are more appropriately divided into two different groups. Object Experiencer verbs are commonly assumed to have a non-transparent structure. The motivation for this includes the observation that Object Experiencer verbs seem to behave incongruously with reference to certain syntactic processes, notably binding and passivization. Thus, binding of a direct object anaphor by the subject is usually considered to be deviant or impossible with these verbs, contrary to the normal situation, whereas binding of an anaphor inside a subject by the direct object is possible.

Meng and Bader have presented evidence that a Case conflict is a more effective cue for garden-path reanalysis than a number conflict is, for German wh-sentences with subject–object ambiguities. The preferred first-pass analysis has the wh-trace in subject position, although object position is correct. In a speeded grammaticality judgment task, perceivers accepted Case-disambiguated examples more often and more rapidly than number-disambiguated examples, although comprehension questions indicated that both were eventually understood correctly. For ungrammatical sentences, a Case mismatch error resulted in more false positive grammaticality judgments than a number mismatch error. We offer an explanation for why Case and number features differ in these two ways in their effects on sentence processing. We propose, within the Diagnosis Model of garden-path processing, that reanalysis triggered by a Case mismatch guides the parser more effectively toward the correct structure. Case is a positive symptom, which carries information about the new structure that must be built. By contrast, a number mismatch is a negative symptom; it invalidates the incorrect structure without showing how to rebuild it. This difference in the transparency of garden-path repair can also account for the greater overacceptance of Case-disambiguated ungrammatical sentences. The speeded grammaticality judgment task is designed to encourage hasty responses. Usually, these are hasty rejections of garden path sentences that, on calmer reflection, the parser would find acceptable. Conversely, over-hasty acceptance could occur if some initial progress is made in resolving a grammatical problem. Thus, a higher rate of false positives on ungrammaticals is to be expected where reanalysis proceeds successfully for a while before blocking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The syntax of features is a complicated and densely researched domain, from a variety of theoretical perspectives. The present paper takes one influential syntactic framework [the minimalist program of Chomsky, 1995] as its vantage point, and discusses the major issues that arise within this framework in the domain of the syntax of features, with particular emphasis on Case and agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study is presented on the effects of discourse–semantic and lexical–syntactic information during spoken sentence processing. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were registered while subjects listened to discourses that ended in a sentence with a temporary syntactic ambiguity. The prior discourse–semantic information biased toward one analysis of the temporary ambiguity, whereas the lexical-syntactic information allowed only for the alternative analysis. The ERP results show that discourse–semantic information can momentarily take precedence over syntactic information, even if this violates grammatical gender agreement rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduces a series of articles which examines linguistic syntactic features and their role in the representation and processing of sentences. Linguistic approaches to syntactic derivations; Operation of syntactic features in contemporary linguistic theory; Investigation on the effect of case on reanalysis; Discussion on the effect of gender making on relative pronouns.