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An analysis of the structure and functioning of Modern Greek gerundival constructions is presented. First, it is argued that there are clear differences between gerunds and participles. Issues concerning the temporal interpretation of gerunds are considered, and an account is given that postulates the existence of a covert temporal operator like one used for temporal prepositions in English, whose movement determines the clause with which the gerund will be associated. A theory of adjunction that does not distinguish configurationally between adjunct phrases and specifiers is assumed, to avoid potential violation of the adjunct constraint. An examination of control issues with gerunds concludes that although apparently restricted to adjoined positions, gerunds can also be arguments, and by virtue of their indefinite nature, permit exceptional case marking. It is concluded that this evidence supports the Definite/Indefinite distinction at the clausal level. Contains 42 references. (MSE)

Much earlier controversy surrounding the Chinese "ba" construction stems from dissention over whether or not "ba" has any independent semantic content. "Ba" was assumed either to be a purely formal particle whose function was to assign case, or to have semantic content translating into thematic content. However, under the hypothesis that abstract case does not play a role in Chinese, "ba" can not be a case marker. It is also argued that thematic content can not be assumed. Instead, a second kind of thematic information that plays a role in syntactic description, namely event structure, is hypothesized. It is shown that the affected interpretation of the "ba" dependent phrase is the consequence not of a particular thematic role but of the a-role assigned by "ba." Thus the constraints on "ba" are captured and shown to be intrinsically linked. It is concluded that this provides further evidence for a model of syntax in which there is considerable interaction between the syntactic representation and the level of event structure. Contains 19 references. (MSE)

Based on a review of research, the most common syntactic errors made by native Arabic-speaking learners of English as a second language are discussed. Seven categories of error are distinguished and described: verbal errors (use of tense, phase, aspect, voice, verb formation, concord, finite/non-finite verbs); relative clauses (interlingual and intralingual errors, structural misrepresentation, simplification); adverbial clauses (comparison, purpose, result, concession, manner); sentence structure; articles (definite and indefinite); prepositions (deletion, substitution, redundancy); and conjunctions. It is concluded that most common source of error is the influence of the native language, and that in processing English syntactic structures, Arabic speakers adopt certain strategies similar to those of first-language learners, including simplification and overgeneralization. Contains 52 references. (MSE)

This paper investigated if prior context was used by readers to resolve temporarily ambiguous prepositional phrases. The paper addresses two issues, referring to two competing approaches to sentence processing and testing the predictability of each approach in two online reading experiments. The issues focus on the Human Sentence Processing Mechanism (HSPM), looking at whether it is a single structural analysis or multiple structural analyses at points of syntactic ambiguity and how these structural analyses are generated during sentence processing. Two experiments test the predictions of the Garden Path models (the original Garden Path model and the Lexical Filtering Proposal) and the Constraint Satisfaction Approach, concerning the role of sentence context in resolving syntactic attachment ambiguities. Experiment 1 involved 42 undergraduate students, fluent in American English, and 18 experiment items; sentences were presented to subjects on a computer screen. Results did not support the strong lexical guidance predictions of the Constraint Satisfaction Approach and other lexically-driven models. Experiment 2 involved 24 undergraduate students, fluent in American English and using the same experiment items as in experiment 1, except that eye movements were recorded. Results indicate that eye gaze duration and total time data revealed very different patterns. Overall, results are consistent with the Lexical Filtering Proposal of sentence processing, which assumes that initial parsing decisions can be made without reference to nonsyntactic information. (Contains 26 references.) (NAV)

A study explored the functionalist-constructivist approach to acquisition of grammar where word classes emerge as a result of distributional differences related to function. Focus is on acquisition of two Swedish forms, "i" and "pa," which can belong to the categories of either particles or prepositions, in two Swedish children, based on longitudinal corpus data. It was predicted that uses of the two forms with the same basic function (locative or directional) would not be acquired simultaneously as prepositions and particles, and that spatial uses of the forms would be acquired before non-spatial uses. Overall, results failed to confirm these predictions. Data for only one child and one form seemed to confirm both predictions. Both children showed no difficulty in acquiring non-spatial uses of "pa" simultaneously with or even before the spatial ones. Three experiments then tested (1) whether preposition and particle usages could be classified based on simple distributional data only, (2) whether consideration of stress patterns facilitated this analysis, and (3) a hypothesized conceptual structure for mapping acquisition. Results lent some support to the functionalist-constructivist approach to acquisition of word classes. Contains 24 references. (MSE)

A study examined the English syntactic problems persistent in the performance of educated Arabs living in the United States for an average of 5 years. The study is seen as significant because it reflects the features that distinguish the Arabs' English as a performance variety that develops where English is used as a foreign language. Subjects were 15 bilingual Arabs, either graduate students or educated individuals engaged in business. Data were gathered in three tasks: a multiple-choice test of verb forms; a translation task; and a picture description task. Results indicate performance problems in the areas of: (1) tense agreement; (2) relative clause construction; (3) indirect questions; (4) perfective tenses; and (5) use of prepositions. It was also found that the degree of deviation in these areas depends on both the amount of time spent in the United States and the educational level of the speaker; the longer the time spent in the United States and the higher the academic achievement level, the less deviation observed. These results are also compared with findings of previous research. The three tasks are appended. Contains 26 references. (MSE)

In English, the word 'to' functions as a preposition (e.g., 'to the store') and also as part of an infinitive (e.g., 'to go'). Two experiments investigated how the word 'to' is resolved by fluent undergraduate student readers. Readers comprehended sentences that contained the word 'to' preceded by sentence context that either did or did not disambiguate the role of the word 'to' in the sentence. The word 'to' was followed by sentence context that disambiguated the word 'to' as a preposition or as part of an infinitive. Processing load was assessed immediately after ambiguous word 'to' was read (Experiment 1) and immediately after the disambiguating word was read (Experiment 2) using a uni-modal, dual task reading technique used previously by Clifton, Frazier, and Connine (1985). The results indicated that the resolution of the word 'to' is influenced by following, but not prior, sentence context. (Contains 19 references and a table of data. An appendix lists sentences used in the study.) (Author/RS)

This study examined children's acquisition of language by means of correlating spoken words and observed objects and actions. The common sense view of word learning via observation applies easily to learning nouns for objects, but becomes problematic in the process of learning verbs. When they encounter novel verbs applied to observed situations, children are able to infer meaning using cues from word order and may be able to infer meaning using cues based on the transitivity of the verb and on the preposition that is used with the verb. In two experiments, 3- and 5-year-old children were shown videos of novel agent-patient and donor-recipient actions, along with descriptive sentences that contained transitive and intransitive nonsense verbs, and nonsense verbs with the prepositions "from" and "to." Then the children were asked to identify the agents of the actions. Found that, for agent-patient events described by sentences with transitive verbs, children were able to identify the agent almost all the time, but for agent-patient events described by sentences with intransitive verbs, children were able to identify the agent only about half the time. (ME)

Taiwanese college students have significant difficulty in reading technical texts in English. Based on information gathered from students in freshman English classes in Taiwan, and on previous research, three significant areas of student confusion are: (1) frequent use of prepositions, particularly when an English preposition with multiple meanings is used with a marker in Chinese that is similar to the genitive case; (2) use of a relative clause that interrupts the subject-verb-object sequence of an independent clause, e.g., "the money that you gave him...," especially difficult in the lengthy sentences of a technical text; and (3) failure to look at the English phrase as a whole instead of individual words. Two techniques are found useful for helping Chinese students overcome these difficulties. The first, the phrase structure approach, requires students to become familiar with the rules and elements that build noun, verb, adjectival, and adverbial phrases and learn to identify and manipulate them. The second, designed to bridge the gap between secondary school and college English reading instruction, involves identifying and translating specific structures in short passages. It uses a large number of passages on varied topics, arranged by sentence complexity. Students have responded very positively to this approach. (MSE)

An analysis of the polysemic nature of prepositions in pidgins and creoles (PCs) looks at the analytic nature of PCs and the pervasive variability in their grammars, and then focuses on usage of the preposition "fo" in Anglo-Nigerian Pidgin (ANP), likely borrowed from the English "for." It is argued that while this is not the only preposition in ANP, its usage in various contexts where other more "natural" languages normally employ distinct prepositions can be attributed to the lexical restriction common to PCs. The analysis looks at how "fo" is capable of differential signification when it possesses basically the same sense in all prepositional contexts, and what inherent meaning it has that can explain its semantic versatility. It is concluded that in ANP grammar, while the presence of prepositions could b pertinent in certain contexts, it does not appear to be primary for signification, and that prepositions tend to "grow" in a language as it develops through elaboration, with prepositional specialization setting in later. It also supports the notion that prepositions are one of the regular victims of language structural reduction, arguing for the role of "fo" as a prepositional jack-of-all-trades. Contains 15 references. (MSE)

Most studies that have been conducted on locative constructions in many languages show the relationship between the figure and the ground in terms of geometrical or topological terms. This report shows that in Sinhala the locative expressions answer not only the question "Where is the object X," but also indicate how the figure is oriented in relation to the ground. It is also shown that the verb forms appearing in Sinhala locative expressions are sensitive to the animate/inanimate distinction. The major goal of the study is to show how the equivalents of English spatial prepositional expressions are constructed in Sinhala and how they differ from expressions in English. It is concluded that spatial expressions in Sinhala show that what Sinhala speakers conceive and conceptualize are not only the relation of the spatial entity to the localizer, but also the states, events, and actions that are involved in originating those schematizations. (JL)

A 2-part investigation was conducted to examine the ways children resolve the inherent ambiguity of spatial descriptions in terms of cues indicated by the three constituents of spatial propositions: predicate, referent, and relatum. In the first study, it was hypothesized that certain objects, structural markers, and definite articles accompanying the predicate would increase the incidence of intrinsic object-related interpretations of spatial descriptions. A total of 30 male and 30 female subjects participated in the study. Of these, 45 were nursery school children in three age groups (mean ages of 3.3, 4.5, and 6r.5 years). Participating adults ranged in age from 19 to 62 years. Tasks included two verbal items to assess the use of definiteness in linguistic referencing and 24 items to examine the interpretations of ambiguous spatial descriptions. Findings indicated that, in contrast to the other groups, young children's interpretations of spatial locatives rely most heavily on the intrinsic features of the objects being manipulated. Although the 5-year-olds' responses were different from those of the two younger groups, their performance was not like that of adults. Accordingly, a second study was conducted to follow changes across the next 2 years. Mean ages of the 23 males and 22 females assigned to three age groups were 5.6, 6.9, and 7.9. Different cues were found to be relevant for the different ages examined. The 5-year-olds responded according to the object and the marker, while the 6- and 7-year-olds responded according to the presence of the definite article in the predicate. (RH)

A study compares and contrasts a set of English and Spanish prepositions of location in the context of prototype theory. It seeks to establish the prototype concept of each preposition and the degrees of prototypicality by testing for native-speaker choices of examples that illustrate best the most basic use of the preposition. The prepositions studied are "in, on, at, and over" (English) and "en and sobre" (Spanish). The study also tests the hypothesis that the English preposition whose prototype corresponds most closely to the prototype of a given Spanish preposition tends to be preferred to other prepositions by Spanish speakers learning English, regardless of whether or not it is appropriate, in contexts in which that Spanish preposition would be used. Four instruments were designed to determine prototype concepts and degree of prototypicality. It is concluded that some prepositions are describable in terms of prototypes and others are better stated in terms of an abstract set of defining features. In addition, there appear to be "latent" prototypes that may not be elicited easily except under certain conditions, such as the need to express oneself in another language. (Author/MSE)

A comparison of the usage of English articles and prepositions by native speakers of Finnish and of Finland-Swedish studied the word frequencies of these grammatical categories in three levels of English essays written by school-leavers in Finnish-language and Swedish-language schools in Finland. It was hypothesized that the poorest essays written by Finnish-speakers would show lower frequencies in the use of English articles and of prepositions where simple one-to-one correspondences are difficult to establish. The frequencies of these words were expected to rise somewhat in intermediate essays and to rise to almost native-speaker level in the good essays. Because Finland-Swedish is grammatically closer to English, the figures for Finland-Swedish learners were expected to be higher than those of the Finns at the lower levels, but the figures for the best essays were not expected to differ very much. One hundred fifty essays on three levels of proficiency written by Finnish-speaking and the same number written by Swedish-speaking students were chosen to test the hypothesis. The data supported that hypothesis. It is concluded that the pattern of learning articles and prepositions in English where there are no easily established Finnish equivalents represents an avoidance by the students of linguistic features that are absent in the first language and perhaps considered redundant by the learner at early stages. The process should be considered a lack of transfer rather than indirect negative transfer of knowledge from the first language to the second. (MSE)

This issue of the journal includes these papers on contrastive linguistics: "Contrastive Patholinguistics: The Acquisition of English Grammatical Morphemes by German Dyslexics in a Foreign-Language Teaching Context" (Udo O. H. Jung); "Contrastive Pragmatics" (Marie-Louise Liebe-Harkort); "On Questions in English and Swedish" (Kay Wikberg); "On Contrasting the Sentence Stress" (Aleksander Szwedek); "At--A Typically English Preposition" (Hubert Cuyckens); "A Contrastive Analysis of English 'Some' and 'Any' and Their Hungarian Equivalents" (Eva H. Stephanides); "Parameters of Linguistic Stress: An Experimental Contrastive Study" (Wieslaw Awedyk); "The Use of Ergative Verbs by German Learners of English. A Pilot Study into Interlanguage" (Werner Hullen); and "English in Speech and Writing: A Project Report" (Anna-Brita Stenstrom). (MSE)

It is possible to construct a case for the child's interpretation of "of" in "must of been" as the preposition "of" in the process of language acquisition. Assuming the familiar concept that linguists should construct the simplest analysis compatible with a phenomenon, it is suggested that some children construct a simplest analysis of such utterances as inevitably containing "of," using a grammar allowing such a structure. Evidence supporting such a structure comes from such constructions as the infinitive, where the word "to," a word with certain unambiguously prepositional functions, occurs ("to do"). If the learner eventually acquires standard English and demonstrates this by writing "must have been," he has replaced this earlier grammatical guesswork with a structure more normally and traditionally considered appropriate for the mature standard dialect. (MSE)

The dequeismo phenomenon is occurring more frequently in spoken Spanish in both Spain and in Latin America. Introduction of the preposition "de" before "que" in nominal complements exploits one recourse in Spanish, namely the deictic capacity of prepositional "de" as a marker or introducer of the speaker's expressions, opinions, or thoughts. This article focuses on this phenomenon in Canary Islands Spanish. (CNP)

Outlines a new approach to teaching prepositions and directional adverbs based on work by Brugman (1981) and Lakoff (1987). The article aims to familiarize readers with the gist of prototype semantics as applied to prepositions, and to suggest pedagogical applications and benefits, with particular reference to the word "on." (15 references) (Author/CK)

Investigates the applicability of the Subset Principle in the second-language acquisition of the Oblique-Case Parameter by 45 learners of French. The results of a grammaticality judgment task and a correction task provide partial support for the Subset Principle. Further research is needed to conclude whether the Oblique-Case Parameter really is a parameter of Universal Grammar. (50 references) (Author/CK)

Reports on research consisting of compiling a contrastive verb valency dictionary of Dutch, French, and English whose main strength lies in depicting semantic differences between its entries and conceptual differences between languages. Using these analyses, one can start to discern nuclear and peripheral meanings, analyze possible meaning extensions, and try to bridge the gap between (morpho-) syntax and semantics. (29 references) (Author/CK)

Conducted a series of experiments in German, Dutch, French, Italian, and English to show that four factors systematically interact when people interpret spatial expressions: the reference object being intrinsically oriented or not; the preposition that is used; the social characteristics of the discourse situation; and the prepositional inventory of the language at issue, as regards its spatial and temporal prepositions. (37 references) (Author/CK)

The role of prosodic breaks (PB) in the parsing of locally ambiguous noun phrases (NP) + verb (V) + NP + prepositional phrase (PP) was examined in four word-monitoring experiments. Results indicate that PBs can influence sentence parsing. The article discusses possible mechanisms in the framework of two models. (32 references) (Author/CK)

Examines the spatial deictic features of Spanish, the study focuses on the topic's pedagogical implications for second- language learning and an accurate description of the contrast between Spanish and English deixis. The article concludes that there is a need to view Spanish spatial deictics as elements "in use" and to see them as belonging to their own deictic dimensions. (62 references) (Author/CK)

Lists the 50 most common writing errors made by college students of French. Mistakes in spelling, vocabulary, and grammar are included. (CK)

Examination of the development of form/function relations of the prepositions "por" and "para" at different levels of proficiency in the interlanguage of study-abroad students in Granada, Spain, revealed "noncanonical" as well as "canonical" uses of these prepositions. The most common noncanonical uses were as substitutions for other prepositions or conjunctions. (20 references) (Author)