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In this study a set of rules that generate certain time expressions in English is constructed. The methodology used is mainly that outlined by Noam Chomsky in Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (1965). The discussion is confined to those time expressions that are single words, single phrases, or sequences of phrases in surface structure. These have the basic deep structure Prep + Det + N (S'), where N has the syntactic feature [+ Time]. Surface structure single word time expressions are derived from this deep structure by deleting Prep and rewriting the NP as a single lexical item; surface structure sequences of phrases are derived by applying the relative clause transformation to the embedded S. Chomsky's list of syntactic features for nouns is extended by adding some inherent features and some selectional features. The additions are needed to distinguish nouns that can occur in time expressions from those that cannot, to state the collocation restrictions between some prepositions and determiners and the time nouns, and to state certain ordering restrictions on surface structure sequences of phrases. The time expressions considered are subcategorized into Locative Time and Duration Time on the basis of collocation with some subclasses of Verb. These subcategories are formally distinct in that their prepositions are mutually exclusive. Locative Time expressions are further sub-categorized into Dynamic Time expressions, those whose collocation restrictions with Auxiliary expansions are linguistically determinable, and Static Time expressions, those whose collocation restrictions are not linguistically determinable. These two subcategories are, again, formally distinct, for their determiners are mutually exclusive. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

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The purpose of this study was to determine if the 'language listening' of children ages three years and three months (3.3) to three years and nine months (3.9) as measured by their behavioral response is influenced by the word-order of an interrogative sentence when presented in normal word-order, misplaced word-order, and scrambled word-order.'Language listening' for the purpose of this investigation was defined as the interpreted meaning of a young child as measured by the correct behavioral response to verbal stimuli ordered in specific syntactical variations. The verbal stimuli were written in three variations of word order. These patterns were normal word order which was the regular order of an interrogative sentence; misplaced word order was a pattern in which all parts of the verb and noun were interchanged in position; and scrambled sentence were positioned randomly without any set pattern of order.The subjects in this study were selected from the available population of children attending five nursery schools located in the metropolitan area of Muncie, Indiana. Selection of subjects and categorization into groups was based upon the index of the mean length of utterance of each individual member. This index was computed from a language sample containing one hundred utterances that were collected in the Screening Session.'Language listening' was measured by the relevant responses of subjects performance to specific requests to respond with an appropriate toy to the question asked and the directions given. Scripts used in the Data Collection Session combined a series of nine behavioral tasks with three of each of the types of word order--normal, misplaced, and scrambled.One major limitation of this study was the index used to measure the verbal maturity of the subjects in this study. This index is an average of the utterance used by the child and disguises the verbal expansion ability of the child and the sophistication of the child's verbal ability. Another limitation of this study was the selection of the behavioral tasks. It was observed that the subjects' performance in some cases was made from an anticipated response rather than responding from actual understanding of the tasks. It appeared that the behavioral tasks were oversimplified to be used the subjects included in this study.A research design employing the use of a Latin Square was constructed to combine the behavioral tasks with the types of word order. An analysis of variance was used for the analysis of data. The F-ratio, derived from an analysis of variance, was used to test statistical significance of the null hypotheses. The .05 level of significance was designated as the standard of significance.The findings of this investigation revealed that there is no statistical significance between 'language listening' and the type of word order. It was also determined in this study that the type of word order does not differentially affect children with varying verbal maturity. The findings did agree with research in the area in regard to children with a nonfluent level of verbal maturity. Agreement was found to support the research that with children having a nonfluent level of verbal maturity, the type of word order that is used as verbal stimuli does not affect the meaning that they glean from the stimuli.Among the recommendations offered was that further research be conducted with children in the early stages of language listening. It was also recommended that further research be conducted using an index of verbal maturity that is descriptive of the actual verbal ability of the child.

published_or_final_version / abstract / Linguistics / Master / Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics

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Within a theoretical framework that combines generative X-bar syntax (Chomsky 1986), a compositional interpretive semantics and elements of Aristotelian logic, this thesis studies the nature of the syntactic and semantic constituents involved in the subject-predicate relations of elementary sentences containing 'be'. Interpretation is characterized in terms of the entities of various types that speakers intend to refer to and the various ontological types that the referents are said to belong to. 'Be' is analyzed as a single lexical item. This analysis unifies all syntactic functions (e.g., auxiliary, copula, main verb) and all "senses" of 'be' (e.g., definitional, equative, predicative, etc.). Conceptually, 'be' in English is an explicit sign of attribution. The propositional content of simple sentences of the form (NP be XP) is the attribution of a certain ontological type or types to the referent(s) of the subject NP. Although the value of postulating a single ontological category to account for all the entities that speakers can refer to and talk about (such as an Aristotelian substance) is questionable, nevertheless, such categories and types seem pertinent for linguistic analysis. With respect to linguistic inference, pronominalization, and question words, an analysis based on ontological types is shown to be more explanatory than one based on the assignment of a fixed set of thematic relations to arguments.

This thesis has analyzed syntactical errors made in written English by Brazilian-Portuguese-speaking students of English as a foreign language. The errors were analyzed and explained so as to determine whether the students use their native competence in Portuguese or their transitional competence in English in their hypothesizing in the target language. In case they use the former, their performance in the target language most likely shows a great deal of native language interference; in case they use the latter, their errors are mostly based on overgeneralizations, false analogies within English itself, or are caused by insufficient knowledge of the rule system of English, or by simple carelessness.By means f this careful analysis the investigator supported, at least partially, the hypothesis that native language interference, while an important cause, is not the sole cause of error in foreign-language performance, since approximately 57% of the errors were due to the interference of the mother tongue.

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