Search

The properties of one of the structures of politeness in the romance languages, the deference system connected with the use of conditional tenses, are analyzed in this paper. Although only Spanish examples are given, the conclusions also apply to French, Italian and Roumanian. The first part of the paper analyzes politeness in relation to its applicability to different illocutionary acts together with the types of sentences that may express them; the second part relates the conclusions of the first part to linguistic theory. Politeness is possible only in those speech acts in which greater control is assigned to the hearer than the speaker, and where the hearer must do something. Therefore, assertions, commands or acts of granting permission cannot be uttered in the polite form, whereas making suggestions or giving advice can be. Sentences with performative verbs or intonation contours and conditional markers fit easily into a linguistic formal theory of semantics. The case of conveyed illocutionary forces is more problematic. This form of politeness is contextual or pragmatic. This separation into two areas, however, seems artificial, since the rules that have been considered seem to function in a similar way and under similar conditions whether "semantic" or "pragmatic." (CFM)

In a sociolinguistic study of the verb phrase in Southern White English, a pattern of change in progress was observed. The 14 variables studied showed that certain variants were increasing, others decreasing, and yet others stable across time within the community, and that each variable's change was progressing in a wave sensitive to age, social class, sex, and rural/urban origins. It is possible that these apparent changes were a reflection of age grading, since there are no earlier records of speech in that community. However, the variants that are decreasing are all older forms of English than those which are increasing and are dying or nonexistent outside Southern White and Black English. This suggests that age grading is not the primary factor here, but rather language change moving through the community. The variables examined were the standard and nonstandard variants of NP plural agreement; plural "was,""is"; singular "don't"; irregular preterits and past participles; "ain't"; negative concord; passive "be" and "got"; perfective "done"; "a+verb+ing"; double modals; "liketa"; and negative inversion. The data base consisted of tape-recorded interviews with 65 natives of Anniston, Alabama, and nearby rural areas. The informants were teenagers and adults over 65 of the working and upper classes. (Author/AM)

To help assess the writing ability of college freshmen studying English as a second language (ESL), this study was undertaken to identify particular structures of subordination associated with writing maturity and to develop a diagnostic instrument to test student control of those structures. Following sentence-generating principles of transformational grammar, the developed examination, entitled Test of Ability to Subordinate (TAS), offers test items in the form of pairs or triads of kernel or "core" sentences which students are asked to combine into one sentence by filling in missing words in a given sentence frame. The 50-item, limited-response examination was administered to a number of ESL college freshmen along with the Michigan Test of English Language Proficiency and a composition exercise. The TAS correlated .86 with scores on the Michigan Test and .74 with composition scores. The study suggests that: (l) certain structures of subordination appear to be critical elements of overall writing ability; (2) it is possible to construct valid objective tests which ask students to actively engage in writing sentences as well as in a cognitive process required in free writing; and (3) the ability to produce certain transformations through sentence combining is indicative of the ability to perform these transformations during the normal writing process. (Author)

This paper discusses one way of exploring how we perceive and understand the connections between some parts of texts, or between one sentence and the whole discourse. Understanding ellipsis involves non-syntactic understanding; the semantic structure is responsible for our understanding of elliptical sentences and encoding the knowledge contained in them. These covert pieces of information are referred to as "structures of expectation." The structures of expectation responsible for our comprehension of connected discourse can be demonstrated by showing how explicit arguments satisfying our expectations are supplied by information given later in the text. The approach was tested in an experiment in which several groups of people were given three sets of sentences with the structure: "A did X. B did Y." Subjects were asked to explain the situation in each set by drawing inferences about the relation between the two parts of each set. One clue to ways of relating the pairs of sentences is stress; another is argument-sharing. This type of analysis can teach us something about the structures underlying our inferences from the manifest content of texts. (Author/AM)

This study investigates relationships between differences in students' achievement and differences obtained by a technique held to yield a reasonably valid representation of students' memory structures of a particular subject matter. Also investigated was the nature of the flow of information between curriculum materials, teachers, and students. This was achieved by a comparison of the digraphs of content structure and the graphs constructed by the teachers and the students. The subjects were five mathematics teachers (grades 7-10) and their six classes (student n = 109). The content used was a curriculum package on operational systems which involved one lecture and a seven-page booklet for students to study. Students and teachers on the average reflected the content structure of the subject in their constructed graphs. There were differences in achievement corresponding to the correctness of students' graphs of the content structure, but these differences also reflected variations among the teachers' graphs. (JP)

The proposed project, mentioned in Vladimir Petric's articles "From Written Film History to Visual Film History," is a book intended as a teaching vehicle for college and university film courses and involving shot-by-shot analysis and evaluation of films as primary study material. Cinematic values are emphasized both because cinematic visual language was almost entirely developed and mastered during the silent film era and because considerable material already exists on contextual or thematic analysis of major films. The films chosen for screening exemplify the various styles of significant filmmakers and the schools to which they belong. Each film is studied analytically, focusing on the formal structure of the work. Material in the 16 chapters follows the technical and stylistic development of the medium, with the general approach being historical. Chapter topics range from the birth of cinema to the avant-garde of the 1920's. (JM)

The poor quality of most university courses in film history is due to several factors, among them the fact that there is insufficient analytical documentation and direct cinematic illustration in existent written film histories. These histories examine films on a thematic level, offering noncinematic interpretation such as literary meaning, social significance, philosophical connotation, and the historical paraphernalia surrounding films. To partially resolve this problem, serious film research on classic films and specific cinematic styles should be undertaken, and archives of film classics should be established which allow repeated viewings of films and parts of films in the close structural analysis of sequences. In addition, a cinematic methodology including direct investigation of the formal strategy of certain groups of films should be permitted. A proposed project, the visual/analytical history of silent cinema, would involve films as primary study material, accompanied by shot-by-shot analysis and evaluation. (JM)

In order to explore the effect of semantic organization on the comprehension of sentences, this research, based on the hypothesis that fully grammatical sentences would be processed more easily than anomalous sentences, depended on data provided by 20 paid college students serving in individual sessions. Each student listened to 30 tape-recorded sentences-15 fully grammatical and 15 anomalous--through one speaker of a stereo system, and pressed a finger key as rapidly as possible on presentation of a tape-recorded click (at 4, 5, 8, 10, or 12 seconds) through the second speaker in the silent period following each sentence. Students then repeated each sentence verbatim 20 seconds after its presentation to insure perception of both sentence and click. Analysis of variance for reaction times yielded a significant effect for semantic relations. Reaction times for anomalous sentences showed a strong linear downward trend, but those for grammatical sentences did not. Data support the hypothesis that the semantic organization of a sentence affects the ease with which it is processed. The effect of semantic organization seems to occur immediately after, not as, the full sentence is heard. (JM)

The nature of common language errors for learners of second languages is explored, and it is found that the errors cannot adequately be explained in terms of the theory of language interference. A new rationale for these errors can come from an investigation of the perceptual strategies common to error analysis, and thus it is postulated that researchers and educators should shift their emphasis away from interference theory toward error analysis theory. One of the immediate consequences of promoting the error analysis theory is that language teachers must be made aware of the role that the processes of lexical incorporation, inchoation, and causation play in the acquisition of language. Another consequence lies in the realization that language teachers must provide the learner with pertinent semantic information in order to allow him to adequately process speech events. (Author/LG)

Designed as a diagnostic tool for assisting early childhood and kindergarten teachers, the Sentence Repetition Task seeks to distinguish children who speak a different dialect and are normal in language development from children who speak a different dialect and are developmentally delayed. This technique is based on the work of Menyuk (1964), Slobin (1967), and Baratz (1969). The instrument focuses on whether a child is repeating abstract terms (Function Words Correct), is developmentally delayed (Function Word Omission), or is reconstructing (word is changed to an equivalent form in poverty vernacular). Sentences were designed to yield two scores, the Reconstruction Score and the Function Word Omission Score. Included in this document are discussions of previous research, explanation of procedures for administering the instrument, mean scores derived from studies of a sample of low socioeconomic status children in New York City, sentences, lists of function and reconstruction words, scoring rules and key, and references. (JM)

This paper argues that the origin of the tonal accents in Low German, Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian can be explained on the basis of segmental circumstances, that they may be considered as secondary in the historical development of these languages, and that they arise when the redundant tonal transition in centering diphthongs becomes distinctive when such diphthongs monophthongize. As a corollary, it is argued that centering diphthongs which become tonal monophthongs arise as a result of the disturbance of the timing of disyllabic sequences with one medial consonant. The argument is based on (1) phonetic studies, and (2) historical and comparative examination of Germanic dialects. (Author/AM)

This paper describes a conceptual framework that can order the host of changes occuring in institutional structure as a consequence of recent learner-centered reform in postsecondary education. Several schemata are examined, and a functional systematization of structures suggested; however, none of these purports to be a completely satisfactory model that can explicate the interactions of the complex institutional structures of contemporary post-secondary education. The major purpose of this paper is to find a pattern in all of the changes to develop explanatory frameworks, based on societal expectation, internal organization, and the political process. (Author/MJM)

This paper asks whether the imprecision and complexity of natural language, as opposed to the language of science or logic, represent flaws or essential functional properties. It is argued that ambiguity can be manipulated by the speaker through environmentally derived characteristics. A discussion follows on the study of the functions of language as conceived by the Prague school, and the effect of functional linguistics on American sociolinguistics. While both schools agree on a definition of the term "functions of language," the central problem is a disagreement in the approach to the study of language functions. The Prague school postulates a specific number of functions on the basis of a particular theoretical understanding of the speech act, while the American school believes that language functions should be discovered rather than postulated. As only extensive further research can lead to a definitive theory of language functions, it is hoped that the significance of the functions of language will be recognized, and that the study of functional linguistics will benefit structural linguistics as well. (AM)

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) organized a Conference on Future Structure of Post-Secondary Education, Paris, June 1973. The central concern of the conference was to examine the advent of mass higher education in its main patterns and characteristics and to identify alternative policy measures for facilitating the overall structural transformation of the system towards meeting its new objectives in the context of social and economic development. This document reports conference proceedings and papers presented, covering overall issues in the development of future structures of postsecondary education, accessibility to postsecondary education and employment, nontraditional forms of study in postsecondary education, the structure of studies and the place of research in mass higher education, and the planning and financing of postsecondary education. (MJM)

The course in parsing English is essentially a survey and comparison of several of the principal systems used for understanding natural language. The basic procedure of parsing is described. The discussion of the principal systems is based on the idea that "meaning is procedures," that is, that the procedures of application give a parsed structure its significance. Natural language systems should be content- rather than structure-motivated, i.e. they should be concerned with linguistic problems revealed by parsing rather than with the relation of the proposed structure of the system to the structures of other systems. Within this framework, Winograd's understanding system, SHRDLU, is described and discussed, as are the second generation systems of Simmons, Schank, Colby and Wilks. A subsequent discussion compares all these systems. Concluding remarks outline immediate problems, including the need for a good memory model and the use of texts, rather than individual example sentences, for investigation. (CLK)

When a grammar is expressed in augmented transition network (ATN) form, the problem of detecting syntactic ambuguity reduces to finding all possible paths through the ATNs. Each successfully terminating path through the ATN generates an acceptable parsing of the input string. Two ATN forms, minimal-node and pseudo-tree, are described along with the conventions for traversing each. The two forms are compared in regard to efficient use of computer time and space and in regard to appropriateness for each of the three path-finding techniques. Three techniques are discussed for finding all acceptable paths through ATNs. The techniques are "Backtracking,""Simultaneous Parallel Analysis," and "Amputate And Re-enter." Relative merits of the three techniques are discussed in terms of computer execution time, required data storage, programmer time, and amenability of the program to modification. A rudimentary ATN-based parser for English has been written in SPITBOL to test the implementation of these techniques. (Author)

This is a state-of-the-art review of word formative morphology. The paper surveys three loosely knit 'schools' of word formation: (1) the Generative school, (2) the Continental school, and (3) the Slavicist school. It points out that much work in word formation is being duplicated because of a lack of coordination and communication between the respective schools. The paper concludes with a list of the 10 most perplexing problems facing word formationists today: (1) semantic-syntactic asymmetry, (2) derivational gaps, (3) lexicalization, (4) semiproductivity, (5) rule order, (6) derivational direction or 'motivatn,' (7) the apparently ineluctable ad hocness in the derivation of relative adjectives and some noun compounds, (8) the location of the word formation component in the grammar, (9) confusion of nongenerable and nonoccurring forms, and (10) the problem of currency (how to determine which of several generable forms with appropriate meanings will in fact gain currency). The problems are discussed in the text and associated with appropriate references in the bibliography. (Author)

The problem of this conference panel was to determine the interaction between the structural properties of text and the cognitive processes involved in comprehension. This panel report contains sections on the organization of the message in the communication system, the information readers derive from a message and how well they derive it, the process of going from sound (or print) to meaning, knowledge growth and use, and bilingualism. The last section consists of models of the process of extracting meaning from discourse, including models of language understanding and computer models of language acquisition. Lists of priorities and recommendations and of references are included. (JM)