This is a corpus-based study on adjective use in eighty written compositions by Swedish learners of English from Grade 7 and Grade 9 in junior high school, and from Year 1 and Year 3 in senior high school. The aims of the study are to conduct an analysis of the use of attributive adjectives in noun phrases, and to investigate how attributive adjective use contributes to the syntactic complexity of noun phrases. This study proposes a hypothesis of the complexity of noun phrases in relation to different types of attributive adjectives, that is to say, an assumption that more complex types of attributive adjectives contain more compact information that requires more effort to learn and use.  The investigation shows that Swedish learners of English in junior and senior high school use an overwhelming number of noun phrases without premodifiers. The findings confirm that less proficient students use more adjectives as premodifiers in noun phrases than nouns as premodifiers. The results of the examination also reveal that students from the four school levels investigated use the most common attributive adjectives frequently, which accouts for more than half of the attributive adjectives used. However, a positive trend is that the use of more complex types of adjectives, such as derivational and participial adjectives, steadily increases in number when students advance in school level.  The comparision of the most common attributive adjectives in proportion to other adjectives used in the data from each grade shows that more proficient students use a richer variety of adjectives than less proficient students. Some pedagogical implications in this connection are the need to raise Swedish students’ awareness of different types of adjectives in language teaching and learning. Other pedagogical suggestions are the need to develop students’ skills in elaborating ideas and consolidating syntactic structures in their writing.       Keywords: syntactic development, noun premodification, attributive adjective, Swedish learners of English

Children with high-functioning autism, children with specific language impairment, children with autism and language impairment, and controls produced sentences after a prompt to form a sentence using a specific word. The sentences were analyzed for syntactic complexity. Children with language impairment, regardless of autism diagnosis, made less complex sentences than their age peers. However, children with autism and language impairment exhibited a broader range of ability than children with language impairment alone. Children with high-functioning autism without concomitant structural language impairment created sentences of similar complexity to age peers. Word variables also influenced sentence complexity, with word meaning (abstract vs. concrete) having the most robust effect and word frequency having a negligible effect. Implications for this study in relation to double-deficit and syntactic bootstrapping models are discussed.

This paper is a study of the noun phrase construction in L2 learner language and the base for the study are the tools for measuring syntactic maturity presented by Kellog W. Hunt (1966). Hunt and other scholars have used T-units, the smallest terminable unit in language, to analyze L2 learner language. This study however, analyzes the construction of the noun phrase instead of T-units. Although the focus differs there are many similarities between the method used in this study and in those analyzing T-units. This means that the study tries to create indexes which we can use as tools for measuring syntactic maturity and complexity among L2 learners, by measuring consolidation and postmodification. The outcome of the study shows that it is possible to measure consolidation of the noun phrase and that this figure may very well function as a tool for measuring language development. Furthermore this paper investigates opportunities for teachers to teach syntax and concludes that there are ways of improving L2 teaching by utilizing knowledge about L2 learner syntax.

The primary aim of this study is to determine the level of syntactic development in English of South African matriculants. The ESL standard in South Africa has been criticised, but no objective data are available. This study provides relevant data, based on an index, and indicates shortcomings in learners' syntactic competence. Poor school-leaving standards in English are a cause of great concern in South Africa, and complaints about school leavers' standard of English have increased over the last few years. Yet, apart from generally being labelled as "poor", little is known about the actual level of development reached by ESL learners. Comments are often based on subjective impressions. This study focuses on syntactic development in writing and aims to determine the level of syntactic development of Grade 12 ESL learners in an objective way. Interlanguage, the concept of 'stages of development’ and fossilization are discussed. The need for an index that can measure language development objectively is considered. General means of measuring syntactic development are evaluated and an index formula is established by means of statistical analyses. This formula is based on the T-unit and assigns numerical values to levels of development. The index formula is used to determine the level of syntactic development of a group of Grade 12 ESL learners. The compositions that were analysed were obtained from six provinces in South Africa. Index values are calculated for Higher and Standard Grade, for the group as a whole, and each of the six provinces. An Error Analysis is conducted and error frequencies are reported. Problem areas in syntax are identified. The implications of the findings are considered and recommendations are briefly made for the teaching and learning of grammar. / Thesis (M.A. (English))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2005.

The primary aim of this study is to determine the level of syntactic development in English of South African matriculants. The ESL standard in South Africa has been criticised, but no objective data are available. This study provides relevant data, based on an index, and indicates shortcomings in learners' syntactic competence. Poor school-leaving standards in English are a cause of great concern in South Africa, and complaints about school leavers' standard of English have increased over the last few years. Yet, apart from generally being labelled as "poor", little is known about the actual level of development reached by ESL learners. Comments are often based on subjective impressions. This study focuses on syntactic development in writing and aims to determine the level of syntactic development of Grade 12 ESL learners in an objective way. Interlanguage, the concept of 'stages of development’ and fossilization are discussed. The need for an index that can measure language development objectively is considered. General means of measuring syntactic development are evaluated and an index formula is established by means of statistical analyses. This formula is based on the T-unit and assigns numerical values to levels of development. The index formula is used to determine the level of syntactic development of a group of Grade 12 ESL learners. The compositions that were analysed were obtained from six provinces in South Africa. Index values are calculated for Higher and Standard Grade, for the group as a whole, and each of the six provinces. An Error Analysis is conducted and error frequencies are reported. Problem areas in syntax are identified. The implications of the findings are considered and recommendations are briefly made for the teaching and learning of grammar. / Thesis (M.A. (English))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2005.

Joint attention (JA) is the ability to coordinate attention between a conversation partner and an outside object, while being aware of the other’s attention. This study investigates JA in 14 parent-child dyads at the ages 0;9, 1;0, 1;3, 1;6, 1;9 and 2;0, and aims to examine how the initiation of JA develops with age, as well as the relationship between JA and later vocabulary size and syntactic level. The strategies for initiating JA were recorded for both parents and children, and the total amount of JA, as well as child-initiated JA, was calculated for each age point. The results show that children with a higher language level, calculated as a composite score of vocabulary at 4;0 and syntactic level at 3;0, spent on average more time in JA than children with a lower language level. In line with previous research, the present study found a positive relationship between JA and vocabulary. Furthermore, the results suggest a relationship between JA and syntactic development. Especially the amount of child-initiated JA was related to both vocabulary size at the age of 4;0 and syntactic level at the age of 3;0, which indicates the importance of this type of interaction for language acquisition. / Joint attention (JA) är förmågan att koordinera sin uppmärksamhet mellan en konversationspartner och ett tredje objekt, och samtidigt vara medveten om den andres uppmärksamhet. Den här studien undersöker JA i 14 förälder-barndyader vid åldrarna 0;9, 1;0, 1;3, 1;6, 1;9 och 2;0, med syftet att utröna hur initieringen av JA utvecklas med åldern, och hur relationen mellan JA och senare ordförrådsstorlek och syntaktisk nivå ser ut. Strategierna för att initiera JA undersöktes för både föräldrar och barn, och den totala mängden JA och barninitierad JA räknades för varje ålderspunkt. Resultaten visar att barn med en högre språklig nivå, räknat som kompositpoängen av vokabulär vid 4;0 och syntaktisk nivå vid 3;0, i genomsnitt spenderade mer tid i JA än barn med en lägre språklig nivå. I linje med tidigare forskning påvisade denna studie ett positivt samband mellan JA och ordförråd. Därutöver tyder resultaten på ett samband mellan JA och syntaktisk utveckling. Särskilt mängden barninitierad JA var positivt relaterad till både ordförråd vid 4;0 och syntaktisk nivå vid 3;0, vilket indikerar att denna typ av interaktion är viktig för språkutveckling. / Modelling infant language acquisition from parent-child interaction (MINT)

Limited information exists regarding the acquisition of syntax and morphology in young Spanish-English bilingual language learners. A method to measure short-term language learning is through structural priming; an auditory model of the target structure is presented, which influences a subject’s subsequent production. The purpose of this thesis was to develop and pilot priming tasks in both English and Spanish to analyze the language production of typically developing bilingual elementary school students. The morphosyntactic structures targeted in the structural priming task included the third person singular and past tense in English, as well as direct object clitics and imperfect tense in Spanish. The study included three participants, aged 4;7, 6;7, and 10;11. Results revealed that bilingual elementary students with varied language exposure are influenced and learn from morphosyntactic priming. / text