Improving DHH Students' Grammar through an Individualized Software Program

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cannon, Joanna E.; Easterbrooks, Susan R.; Gagne, Phill; Beal-Alvarez, Jennifer

2011-01-01

The purpose of this study was to determine if the frequent use of a targeted, computer software grammar instruction program, used as an individualized classroom activity, would influence the comprehension of morphosyntax structures (determiners, tense, and complementizers) in deaf/hard-of-hearing (DHH) participants who use American Sign Language…

"Who Was 'Shadow'?" The Computer Knows: Applying Grammar-Program Statistics in Content Analyses to Solve Mysteries about Authorship.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ellis, Barbara G.; Dick, Steven J.

1996-01-01

Employs the statistics-documentation portion of a word-processing program's grammar-check feature together with qualitative analyses to determine that Henry Watterson, long-time editor of the "Louisville Courier-Journal," was probably the South's famed Civil War correspondent "Shadow." (TB)

Pedagogical Gestures as Interactional Resources for Teaching and Learning Tense and Aspect in the ESL Grammar Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Matsumoto, Yumi; Dobs, Abby Mueller

2017-01-01

This study investigated the functions of gesture in teaching and learning grammar in the context of second language (L2) classroom interactions. The data consisted of video-recorded interactions from a beginner- and an advanced-level grammar classroom in an intensive English program at a U.S. university. The sequences of talk-in-interaction…

A Computer Program for Testing Grammars On-Line.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gross, Louis N.

This paper describes a computer system which is intended to aid the linguist in building a transformational grammar. The program operates as a rule tester, performing three services for the user through sets of functions which allow the user to--specify, change, and print base trees (to which transformations would apply); define transformations…

Form and Function of Linguistic Elements

DTIC Science & Technology

2009-02-20

Chomsky (1957) and continued into the frameworks from around Chomsky’s Aspects (1965). The main thrust was to move from grammars centered on covering...Miminalist Program Grammars Work by Chomsky , starting around 1995 ( Chomsky 1995) represents a move toward radically simplified systems. A...particular theories can be formulated as choices within such a general scheme or metatheory. 14 We take Richard Montague’s Universal Grammar

Parsing Protocols Using Problem Solving Grammars. AI Memo 385.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Miller, Mark L.; Goldstein, Ira P.

A theory of the planning and debugging of computer programs is formalized as a context free grammar, which is used to reveal the constituent structure of problem solving episodes by parsing protocols in which programs are written, tested, and debugged. This is illustrated by the detailed analysis of an actual session with a beginning student…

Interpretable Categorization of Heterogeneous Time Series Data

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lee, Ritchie; Kochenderfer, Mykel J.; Mengshoel, Ole J.; Silbermann, Joshua

2017-01-01

We analyze data from simulated aircraft encounters to validate and inform the development of a prototype aircraft collision avoidance system. The high-dimensional and heterogeneous time series dataset is analyzed to discover properties of near mid-air collisions (NMACs) and categorize the NMAC encounters. Domain experts use these properties to better organize and understand NMAC occurrences. Existing solutions either are not capable of handling high-dimensional and heterogeneous time series datasets or do not provide explanations that are interpretable by a domain expert. The latter is critical to the acceptance and deployment of safety-critical systems. To address this gap, we propose grammar-based decision trees along with a learning algorithm. Our approach extends decision trees with a grammar framework for classifying heterogeneous time series data. A context-free grammar is used to derive decision expressions that are interpretable, application-specific, and support heterogeneous data types. In addition to classification, we show how grammar-based decision trees can also be used for categorization, which is a combination of clustering and generating interpretable explanations for each cluster. We apply grammar-based decision trees to a simulated aircraft encounter dataset and evaluate the performance of four variants of our learning algorithm. The best algorithm is used to analyze and categorize near mid-air collisions in the aircraft encounter dataset. We describe each discovered category in detail and discuss its relevance to aircraft collision avoidance.

A compiler and validator for flight operations on NASA space missions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fonte, Sergio; Politi, Romolo; Capria, Maria Teresa; Giardino, Marco; De Sanctis, Maria Cristina

2016-07-01

In NASA missions the management and the programming of the flight systems is performed by a specific scripting language, the SASF (Spacecraft Activity Sequence File). In order to perform a check on the syntax and grammar it is necessary a compiler that stress the errors (eventually) found in the sequence file produced for an instrument on board the flight system. In our experience on Dawn mission, we developed VIRV (VIR Validator), a tool that performs checks on the syntax and grammar of SASF, runs a simulations of VIR acquisitions and eventually finds violation of the flight rules of the sequences produced. The project of a SASF compiler (SSC - Spacecraft Sequence Compiler) is ready to have a new implementation: the generalization for different NASA mission. In fact, VIRV is a compiler for a dialect of SASF; it includes VIR commands as part of SASF language. Our goal is to produce a general compiler for the SASF, in which every instrument has a library to be introduced into the compiler. The SSC can analyze a SASF, produce a log of events, perform a simulation of the instrument acquisition and check the flight rules for the instrument selected. The output of the program can be produced in GRASS GIS format and may help the operator to analyze the geometry of the acquisition.

Minimal Reduplication

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kirchner, Jesse Saba

2010-01-01

This dissertation introduces Minimal Reduplication, a new theory and framework within generative grammar for analyzing reduplication in human language. I argue that reduplication is an emergent property in multiple components of the grammar. In particular, reduplication occurs independently in the phonology and syntax components, and in both cases…

Tanzanian Swahili: Grammar Handbook. Peace Corps Language Handbook Series.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hawkinson, Annie K.

This grammar handbook analyzes the rules of Tanzanian Swahili and provides different types of exercises on them. It is divided into 36 lessons and is illustrated with pen-and-ink drawings. A bibliography, index, and Swahili-English glossary complete the volume. (AMH)

Early Vocabulary, Parental Education, and the Frequency of Shared Reading as Predictors of Toddler's Vocabulary and Grammar at Age 2;7: A Slovenian Longitudinal CDI Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Marjanovic-Umek, Ljubica; Fekonja-Peklaj, Urška; Socan, Gregor

2017-01-01

The aim of this longitudinal study, carried out on a sample of Slovenian-speaking toddlers, was to analyze developmental changes and stability in early vocabulary development; to establish relations between toddler's vocabulary and grammar; and to analyze the effects of parental education and the frequency of shared reading on toddlers' vocabulary…

ANTLR Tree Grammar Generator and Extensions

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Craymer, Loring

2005-01-01

A computer program implements two extensions of ANTLR (Another Tool for Language Recognition), which is a set of software tools for translating source codes between different computing languages. ANTLR supports predicated- LL(k) lexer and parser grammars, a notation for annotating parser grammars to direct tree construction, and predicated tree grammars. [ LL(k) signifies left-right, leftmost derivation with k tokens of look-ahead, referring to certain characteristics of a grammar.] One of the extensions is a syntax for tree transformations. The other extension is the generation of tree grammars from annotated parser or input tree grammars. These extensions can simplify the process of generating source-to-source language translators and they make possible an approach, called "polyphase parsing," to translation between computing languages. The typical approach to translator development is to identify high-level semantic constructs such as "expressions," "declarations," and "definitions" as fundamental building blocks in the grammar specification used for language recognition. The polyphase approach is to lump ambiguous syntactic constructs during parsing and then disambiguate the alternatives in subsequent tree transformation passes. Polyphase parsing is believed to be useful for generating efficient recognizers for C++ and other languages that, like C++, have significant ambiguities.

Grammaire et communication (Grammar and Communication).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stirman-Langlois, Martine

1994-01-01

A technique for teaching French grammar that involves reading, rereading, and analyzing the language in authentic materials is discussed. The student is led to recognition and generalization of structures in the text. Text examples used here include a comic strip and a publicity blurb for a French city. (MSE)

Automatic Testcase Generation for Flight Software

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bushnell, David Henry; Pasareanu, Corina; Mackey, Ryan M.

2008-01-01

The TacSat3 project is applying Integrated Systems Health Management (ISHM) technologies to an Air Force spacecraft for operational evaluation in space. The experiment will demonstrate the effectiveness and cost of ISHM and vehicle systems management (VSM) technologies through onboard operation for extended periods. We present two approaches to automatic testcase generation for ISHM: 1) A blackbox approach that views the system as a blackbox, and uses a grammar-based specification of the system's inputs to automatically generate *all* inputs that satisfy the specifications (up to prespecified limits); these inputs are then used to exercise the system. 2) A whitebox approach that performs analysis and testcase generation directly on a representation of the internal behaviour of the system under test. The enabling technologies for both these approaches are model checking and symbolic execution, as implemented in the Ames' Java PathFinder (JPF) tool suite. Model checking is an automated technique for software verification. Unlike simulation and testing which check only some of the system executions and therefore may miss errors, model checking exhaustively explores all possible executions. Symbolic execution evaluates programs with symbolic rather than concrete values and represents variable values as symbolic expressions. We are applying the blackbox approach to generating input scripts for the Spacecraft Command Language (SCL) from Interface and Control Systems. SCL is an embedded interpreter for controlling spacecraft systems. TacSat3 will be using SCL as the controller for its ISHM systems. We translated the SCL grammar into a program that outputs scripts conforming to the grammars. Running JPF on this program generates all legal input scripts up to a prespecified size. Script generation can also be targeted to specific parts of the grammar of interest to the developers. These scripts are then fed to the SCL Executive. ICS's in-house coverage tools will be run to measure code coverage. Because the scripts exercise all parts of the grammar, we expect them to provide high code coverage. This blackbox approach is suitable for systems for which we do not have access to the source code. We are applying whitebox test generation to the Spacecraft Health INference Engine (SHINE) that is part of the ISHM system. In TacSat3, SHINE will execute an on-board knowledge base for fault detection and diagnosis. SHINE converts its knowledge base into optimized C code which runs onboard TacSat3. SHINE can translate its rules into an intermediate representation (Java) suitable for analysis with JPF. JPF will analyze SHINE's Java output using symbolic execution, producing testcases that can provide either complete or directed coverage of the code. Automatically generated test suites can provide full code coverage and be quickly regenerated when code changes. Because our tools analyze executable code, they fully cover the delivered code, not just models of the code. This approach also provides a way to generate tests that exercise specific sections of code under specific preconditions. This capability gives us more focused testing of specific sections of code.

Sequencing in SLA: Phonological Memory, Chunking, and Points of Order.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ellis, Nick C.

1996-01-01

Argues that much of language acquisition is sequence learning and that the resultant long-term knowledge base of language sequences serves as the database for grammar acquisition. The article also proposes mechanisms to analyze sequence information that result in knowledge of underlying grammar. (184 references) (Author/CK)

Towards automated processing of clinical Finnish: sublanguage analysis and a rule-based parser.

PubMed

Laippala, Veronika; Ginter, Filip; Pyysalo, Sampo; Salakoski, Tapio

2009-12-01

In this paper, we present steps taken towards more efficient automated processing of clinical Finnish, focusing on daily nursing notes in a Finnish Intensive Care Unit (ICU). First, we analyze ICU Finnish as a sublanguage, identifying its specific features facilitating, for example, the development of a specialized syntactic analyser. The identified features include frequent omission of finite verbs, limitations in allowed syntactic structures, and domain-specific vocabulary. Second, we develop a formal grammar and a parser for ICU Finnish, thus providing better tools for the development of further applications in the clinical domain. The grammar is implemented in the LKB system in a typed feature structure formalism. The lexicon is automatically generated based on the output of the FinTWOL morphological analyzer adapted to the clinical domain. As an additional experiment, we study the effect of using Finnish constraint grammar to reduce the size of the lexicon. The parser construction thus makes efficient use of existing resources for Finnish. The grammar currently covers 76.6% of ICU Finnish sentences, producing highly accurate best-parse analyzes with F-score of 91.1%. We find that building a parser for the highly specialized domain sublanguage is not only feasible, but also surprisingly efficient, given an existing morphological analyzer with broad vocabulary coverage. The resulting parser enables a deeper analysis of the text than was previously possible.

E-Learning Turkish Language and Grammar: Analyzing Learners' Behavior

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Georgalas, Panagiotis

2012-01-01

This study analyses the behavior and the preferences of the Greek learners of Turkish language, who use a particular e-learning website in parallel with their studies, namely: http://turkish.pgeorgalas.gr. The website offers free online material in Greek and English language for learning the Turkish language and grammar. The traffic of several…

Russian HyperTutor: Designing Interactive Multimedia for the Macintosh.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mitrevski, George

1995-01-01

Describes an interactive, multimedia computer program designed to teach Russian grammar, and accompany a commercial textbook. Each of the 35 lessons integrates graphics, sound, and animation. A dictionary and extensive vocabulary exercises are also included. Tutorials provide simple but concise grammar explanations that the teacher can edit or…

Nigel: A Systemic Grammar for Text Generation.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mann, William C.; Matthiessen, Christian M. I. M.

This three-paper report describes Nigel, a large, programmed grammar of English which has been created in the framework of systemic linguistics begun by Halliday, and which, in addition to specifying functions and structures of English, has a novel semantic stratum which specifies the situations for use of each grammatical feature. The…

Development of German-English Machine Translation System.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lehmann, Winifred P.; Stachowitz, Rolf

This report documents efforts over a five-month period toward completion of a pilot system for machine translation of German scientific and technical literature into English. The report is divided into three areas: grammar formalism, programming, and linguistics. Work on grammar formalism concentrated mainly on increasing the power of the…

The Roles of Phonological Short-Term Memory and Working Memory in L2 Grammar and Vocabulary Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Martin, Katherine I.; Ellis, Nick C.

2012-01-01

This study analyzed phonological short-term memory (PSTM) and working memory (WM) and their relationship with vocabulary and grammar learning in an artificial foreign language. Nonword repetition, nonword recognition, and listening span were used as memory measures. Participants learned the singular forms of vocabulary for an artificial foreign…

Establishing a Comprehensive English Teaching Pattern Combining the Communicative Teaching Method and the Grammar-Translation Method

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kong, Na

2011-01-01

Based on the current contradiction between the grammar-translation method and the communicative teaching method in English teaching, this paper, starting with clarifying the task of comprehensive English as well as the definition of the two teaching methods, objectively analyzes their advantages and disadvantages and proposes establishing a new…

Voice and Valence-Altering Operations in Falam Chin: A Role and Reference Grammar Approach

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

King, Deborah

2010-01-01

This dissertation describes and analyzes voice and valence-altering operations in Falam Chin, a Tibeto-Burman language of Burma. The data is explained within the framework of Role and Reference Grammar (RRG), which supplies several key concepts particularly useful for generalizing the behavior of the Falam Chin operations. The first is RRG's…

Integrating Syntax, Semantics, and Discourse DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) Natural Language Understanding Program

DTIC Science & Technology

1988-08-01

heavily on the original SPQR component, and uses the same context free grammar to analyze the ISR. The main difference is that, where before SPQR ...ISR is semantically coherent. This has been tested thoroughly on the CASREPS domain, and selects the same parses that SPQR Eid, in less time. There...were a few SPQR patterns that reflected semantic information that could only be provided by time analysis, such as the fact that [pressure during

The Role of Guided Induction in Paper-Based Data-Driven Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Smart, Jonathan

2014-01-01

This study examines the role of guided induction as an instructional approach in paper-based data-driven learning (DDL) in the context of an ESL grammar course during an intensive English program at an American public university. Specifically, it examines whether corpus-informed grammar instruction is more effective through inductive, data-driven…

Similarities and Differences: Post-Secondary (Grammar) Vocational Schools in Poland and Canadian Community Colleges

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Butler, Norman L.; Davidson, Barry S.; Pachocinski, Ryszard; Kritsonis, William Allan

2006-01-01

This article compares Polish post-secondary vocational (grammar) schools with Canadian community colleges. Recent changes in Polish schooling and Canadian government initiatives drive this work. Accessibility, governance and programs are discussed. The theoretical framework for this comparison was supplied by the notion of the school as an…

Marr's levels and the minimalist program.

PubMed

Johnson, Mark

2017-02-01

A simple change to a cognitive system at Marr's computational level may entail complex changes at the other levels of description of the system. The implementational level complexity of a change, rather than its computational level complexity, may be more closely related to the plausibility of a discrete evolutionary event causing that change. Thus the formal complexity of a change at the computational level may not be a good guide to the plausibility of an evolutionary event introducing that change. For example, while the Minimalist Program's Merge is a simple formal operation (Berwick & Chomsky, 2016), the computational mechanisms required to implement the language it generates (e.g., to parse the language) may be considerably more complex. This has implications for the theory of grammar: theories of grammar which involve several kinds of syntactic operations may be no less evolutionarily plausible than a theory of grammar that involves only one. A deeper understanding of human language at the algorithmic and implementational levels could strengthen Minimalist Program's account of the evolution of language.

An examination of the association between interviewer question type and story-grammar detail in child witness interviews about abuse.

PubMed

Feltis, Brooke B; Powell, Martine B; Snow, Pamela C; Hughes-Scholes, Carolyn H

2010-06-01

This study compared the effects of open-ended versus specific questions, and various types of open-ended questions, in eliciting story-grammar detail in child abuse interviews. The sample included 34 police interviews with child witnesses aged 5-15 years (M age=9 years, 9 months). The interviewers' questions and their relative sub-types were classified according to definitions reported in the child interview training literature. The children's responses were classified according to the proportion of story grammar and the prevalence of individual story grammar elements as defined by Stein and Glenn (1979). Open-ended questions were more effective at eliciting story grammar than specific questions. This finding was revealed across three age groups, two interview phases and irrespective of how question effectiveness was measured. However, not all types of open-ended questions were equally effective. Open-ended questions that encouraged a broad response, or asked the child to elaborate on a part of their account, elicited more story-grammar detail compared to open-ended questions that requested clarification of concepts or descriptions of the next (or another) activity or detail within a sequence. This study demonstrates that children's ability to provide story-grammar detail is maximised when there is minimal prompting from the interviewer. Given the association between story grammar production and victim credibility, greater guidance is warranted in interviewer training programs in relation to the effects and administration of different types of open-ended questions. Copyright 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Hard Rules and Bad Memories: College Learners' Accounts of What Makes Learning German Grammar Difficult

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chavez, Monika

2017-01-01

This questionnaire study analyzed responses of 96 first-, second-, third-, and fourth-year students of College German to the second part of a two-part question, namely, (a) what forms of German grammar are particularly difficult, and (b) why so. Response patterns show that word order, adjective endings, the subjunctive, and the gender/number/case…

Getting to the Point: Storying the United States Military Academy’s and Its Preparatory School’s English Program.

DTIC Science & Technology

1998-01-01

34modules" identified as key to the needed changes at the Prep School (Final 11). Three modules— composition/grammar, precalculus mathematics, and...composition/grammar and performance enhancement, and precalculus mathematics) set out to determine how to define mathematics "gateways," to examine

The Teaching of Grammar: The Relationship of Structure to Communication. ACTFL Master Lecture Series.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Higgs, Theodore V.

Teaching grammar for its own sake is largely counterproductive when the goal of instruction is to have students communicate spontaneously, fluently, and accurately in the target language. The ideal foreign language program is one providing the best possible environment for language acquisition to take place. Explicit teaching about the language…

A Practical Spanish Grammar for Border Patrol Officers.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Border Patrol Academy, El Paso, TX.

Designed to be used in the Spanish training program for probationary officers at the Border Patrol Academy in El Paso, Texas, this revised 21-lesson traditional grammar text includes special features that make it pertinent to the job of a patrol inspector in the Mexican border area. An extensive appendix is comprised of exercise translations,…

Post-Secondary (Grammar) Vocational Schools in Poland and Canadian Community Colleges: A Summary of the Systems

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Butler, Norman L.; Davidson, Barry S.; Pachocinski, Ryszard

2006-01-01

This article compares Polish post-secondary vocational (grammar) schools with Canadian community colleges. Accessibility, governance and programs are discussed. The theoretical framework for this comparison was supplied by the notion of the school as an organization and social institution. We found that it is necessary for educators in both Canada…

A Methodology for Evaluating the Hygroscopic Behavior of Wood in Adaptive Building Skins using Motion Grammar

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

El-Dabaa, Rana; Abdelmohsen, Sherif

2018-05-01

The challenge in designing kinetic architecture lies in the lack of applying computational design and human computer interaction to successfully design intelligent and interactive interfaces. The use of ‘programmable materials’ as specifically fabricated composite materials that afford motion upon stimulation is promising for low-cost low-tech systems for kinetic facades in buildings. Despite efforts to develop working prototypes, there has been no clear methodological framework for understanding and controlling the behavior of programmable materials or for using them for such purposes. This paper introduces a methodology for evaluating the motion acquired from programmed material – resulting from the hygroscopic behavior of wood – through ‘motion grammar’. Motion grammar typically allows for the explanation of desired motion control in a computationally tractable method. The paper analyzed and evaluated motion parameters related to the hygroscopic properties and behavior of wood, and introduce a framework for tracking and controlling wood as a programmable material for kinetic architecture.

Recognition of speaker-dependent continuous speech with KEAL

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mercier, G.; Bigorgne, D.; Miclet, L.; Le Guennec, L.; Querre, M.

1989-04-01

A description of the speaker-dependent continuous speech recognition system KEAL is given. An unknown utterance, is recognized by means of the followng procedures: acoustic analysis, phonetic segmentation and identification, word and sentence analysis. The combination of feature-based, speaker-independent coarse phonetic segmentation with speaker-dependent statistical classification techniques is one of the main design features of the acoustic-phonetic decoder. The lexical access component is essentially based on a statistical dynamic programming technique which aims at matching a phonemic lexical entry containing various phonological forms, against a phonetic lattice. Sentence recognition is achieved by use of a context-free grammar and a parsing algorithm derived from Earley's parser. A speaker adaptation module allows some of the system parameters to be adjusted by matching known utterances with their acoustical representation. The task to be performed, described by its vocabulary and its grammar, is given as a parameter of the system. Continuously spoken sentences extracted from a 'pseudo-Logo' language are analyzed and results are presented.

LC21-Hopes and Cautions for the Library of Congress; The NSF National Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology Education Digital Library (NSDL) Program: A Progress Report; A Grammar of Dublin Core; Measuring the Impact of an Electronic Journal Collection on Library Costs: A Framework and Preliminary Observations; Emulation As a Digital Preservation Strategy.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

O'Donnell, James J.; Zia, Lee L.; Baker, Thomas; Montgomery, Carol Hansen; Granger, Stewart

2000-01-01

Includes five articles: (1) discusses Library of Congress efforts to include digital materials; (2) describes the National Science Foundation (NSF) digital library program to improve science, math, engineering, and technology education; (3) explains Dublin Core grammar; (4) measures the impact of electronic journals on library costs; and (5)…

Grammar Review: Your Tool for Success. Teacher Materials.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pittsburgh Univ., Johnstown, PA. Education Div.

Teacher materials are provided for a computer-assisted English grammar curriculum for adult basic education students (1-8 grade level). They accompany a software program (diskette) that the student is able to use by himself/herself with the Apple IIc or Apple IIe computer with single or double drive and a monitor or a television with an R.F.…

The Challenges of Using the WebCAPE Placement Exam in an Advanced Spanish Grammar Class

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Turner, Robert L., III

2017-01-01

This study attempts to ascertain if the WebCAPE placement exam can be used to measure improvement in an upper division grammar course. The WebCAPE online placement exam is a widely used instrument designed to help university language programs place students into the basic language course best corresponding to their proficiency level. This is done…

Grammar-based Automatic 3D Model Reconstruction from Terrestrial Laser Scanning Data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yu, Q.; Helmholz, P.; Belton, D.; West, G.

2014-04-01

The automatic reconstruction of 3D buildings has been an important research topic during the last years. In this paper, a novel method is proposed to automatically reconstruct the 3D building models from segmented data based on pre-defined formal grammar and rules. Such segmented data can be extracted e.g. from terrestrial or mobile laser scanning devices. Two steps are considered in detail. The first step is to transform the segmented data into 3D shapes, for instance using the DXF (Drawing Exchange Format) format which is a CAD data file format used for data interchange between AutoCAD and other program. Second, we develop a formal grammar to describe the building model structure and integrate the pre-defined grammars into the reconstruction process. Depending on the different segmented data, the selected grammar and rules are applied to drive the reconstruction process in an automatic manner. Compared with other existing approaches, our proposed method allows the model reconstruction directly from 3D shapes and takes the whole building into account.

On the Factor Structure of the Grammar Section of University of Tehran English Proficiency Test (UTEPT)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Salehi, Mohammad; Rezaee, Abbas Ali

2009-01-01

The study was conducted with 3,385 participants who took an English language proficiency test as a partial requirement for entering a PhD program in different fields of education. This test has three sections which are grammar, vocabulary and reading comprehension. To determine the construct validity of the test, a series of analyses were done.…

How Does L1 and L2 Exposure Impact L1 Performance in Bilingual Children? Evidence from Polish-English Migrants to the United Kingdom

PubMed Central

Haman, Ewa; Wodniecka, Zofia; Marecka, Marta; Szewczyk, Jakub; Białecka-Pikul, Marta; Otwinowska, Agnieszka; Mieszkowska, Karolina; Łuniewska, Magdalena; Kołak, Joanna; Miękisz, Aneta; Kacprzak, Agnieszka; Banasik, Natalia; Foryś-Nogala, Małgorzata

2017-01-01

Most studies on bilingual language development focus on children’s second language (L2). Here, we investigated first language (L1) development of Polish-English early migrant bilinguals in four domains: vocabulary, grammar, phonological processing, and discourse. We first compared Polish language skills between bilinguals and their Polish non-migrant monolingual peers, and then investigated the influence of the cumulative exposure to L1 and L2 on bilinguals’ performance. We then examined whether high exposure to L1 could possibly minimize the gap between monolinguals and bilinguals. We analyzed data from 233 typically developing children (88 bilingual and 145 monolingual) aged 4;0 to 7;5 (years;months) on six language measures in Polish: receptive vocabulary, productive vocabulary, receptive grammar, productive grammar (sentence repetition), phonological processing (non-word repetition), and discourse abilities (narration). Information about language exposure was obtained via parental questionnaires. For each language task, we analyzed the data from the subsample of bilinguals who had completed all the tasks in question and from monolinguals matched one-on-one to the bilingual group on age, SES (measured by years of mother’s education), gender, non-verbal IQ, and short-term memory. The bilingual children scored lower than monolinguals in all language domains, except discourse. The group differences were more pronounced on the productive tasks (vocabulary, grammar, and phonological processing) and moderate on the receptive tasks (vocabulary and grammar). L1 exposure correlated positively with the vocabulary size and phonological processing. Grammar scores were not related to the levels of L1 exposure, but were predicted by general cognitive abilities. L2 exposure negatively influenced productive grammar in L1, suggesting possible L2 transfer effects on L1 grammatical performance. Children’s narrative skills benefitted from exposure to two languages: both L1 and L2 exposure influenced story structure scores in L1. Importantly, we did not find any evidence (in any of the tasks in which the gap was present) that the performance gap between monolinguals and bilinguals could be fully closed with high amounts of L1 input. PMID:28928681

Using Multi-Objective Genetic Programming to Synthesize Stochastic Processes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ross, Brian; Imada, Janine

Genetic programming is used to automatically construct stochastic processes written in the stochastic π-calculus. Grammar-guided genetic programming constrains search to useful process algebra structures. The time-series behaviour of a target process is denoted with a suitable selection of statistical feature tests. Feature tests can permit complex process behaviours to be effectively evaluated. However, they must be selected with care, in order to accurately characterize the desired process behaviour. Multi-objective evaluation is shown to be appropriate for this application, since it permits heterogeneous statistical feature tests to reside as independent objectives. Multiple undominated solutions can be saved and evaluated after a run, for determination of those that are most appropriate. Since there can be a vast number of candidate solutions, however, strategies for filtering and analyzing this set are required.

The parser generator as a general purpose tool

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Noonan, R. E.; Collins, W. R.

1985-01-01

The parser generator has proven to be an extremely useful, general purpose tool. It can be used effectively by programmers having only a knowledge of grammars and no training at all in the theory of formal parsing. Some of the application areas for which a table-driven parser can be used include interactive, query languages, menu systems, translators, and programming support tools. Each of these is illustrated by an example grammar.

Incorporating Speech Recognition into a Natural User Interface

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Chapa, Nicholas

2017-01-01

The Augmented/ Virtual Reality (AVR) Lab has been working to study the applicability of recent virtual and augmented reality hardware and software to KSC operations. This includes the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Microsoft HoloLens, and Unity game engine. My project in this lab is to integrate voice recognition and voice commands into an easy to modify system that can be added to an existing portion of a Natural User Interface (NUI). A NUI is an intuitive and simple to use interface incorporating visual, touch, and speech recognition. The inclusion of speech recognition capability will allow users to perform actions or make inquiries using only their voice. The simplicity of needing only to speak to control an on-screen object or enact some digital action means that any user can quickly become accustomed to using this system. Multiple programs were tested for use in a speech command and recognition system. Sphinx4 translates speech to text using a Hidden Markov Model (HMM) based Language Model, an Acoustic Model, and a word Dictionary running on Java. PocketSphinx had similar functionality to Sphinx4 but instead ran on C. However, neither of these programs were ideal as building a Java or C wrapper slowed performance. The most ideal speech recognition system tested was the Unity Engine Grammar Recognizer. A Context Free Grammar (CFG) structure is written in an XML file to specify the structure of phrases and words that will be recognized by Unity Grammar Recognizer. Using Speech Recognition Grammar Specification (SRGS) 1.0 makes modifying the recognized combinations of words and phrases very simple and quick to do. With SRGS 1.0, semantic information can also be added to the XML file, which allows for even more control over how spoken words and phrases are interpreted by Unity. Additionally, using a CFG with SRGS 1.0 produces a Finite State Machine (FSM) functionality limiting the potential for incorrectly heard words or phrases. The purpose of my project was to investigate options for a Speech Recognition System. To that end I attempted to integrate Sphinx4 into a user interface. Sphinx4 had great accuracy and is the only free program able to perform offline speech dictation. However it had a limited dictionary of words that could be recognized, single syllable words were almost impossible for it to hear, and since it ran on Java it could not be integrated into the Unity based NUI. PocketSphinx ran much faster than Sphinx4 which would've made it ideal as a plugin to the Unity NUI, unfortunately creating a C# wrapper for the C code made the program unusable with Unity due to the wrapper slowing code execution and class files becoming unreachable. Unity Grammar Recognizer is the ideal speech recognition interface, it is flexible in recognizing multiple variations of the same command. It is also the most accurate program in recognizing speech due to using an XML grammar to specify speech structure instead of relying solely on a Dictionary and Language model. The Unity Grammar Recognizer will be used with the NUI for these reasons as well as being written in C# which further simplifies the incorporation.

Template construction grammar: from visual scene description to language comprehension and agrammatism.

PubMed

Barrès, Victor; Lee, Jinyong

2014-01-01

How does the language system coordinate with our visual system to yield flexible integration of linguistic, perceptual, and world-knowledge information when we communicate about the world we perceive? Schema theory is a computational framework that allows the simulation of perceptuo-motor coordination programs on the basis of known brain operating principles such as cooperative computation and distributed processing. We present first its application to a model of language production, SemRep/TCG, which combines a semantic representation of visual scenes (SemRep) with Template Construction Grammar (TCG) as a means to generate verbal descriptions of a scene from its associated SemRep graph. SemRep/TCG combines the neurocomputational framework of schema theory with the representational format of construction grammar in a model linking eye-tracking data to visual scene descriptions. We then offer a conceptual extension of TCG to include language comprehension and address data on the role of both world knowledge and grammatical semantics in the comprehension performances of agrammatic aphasic patients. This extension introduces a distinction between heavy and light semantics. The TCG model of language comprehension offers a computational framework to quantitatively analyze the distributed dynamics of language processes, focusing on the interactions between grammatical, world knowledge, and visual information. In particular, it reveals interesting implications for the understanding of the various patterns of comprehension performances of agrammatic aphasics measured using sentence-picture matching tasks. This new step in the life cycle of the model serves as a basis for exploring the specific challenges that neurolinguistic computational modeling poses to the neuroinformatics community.

Closure properties of Watson-Crick grammars

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zulkufli, Nurul Liyana binti Mohamad; Turaev, Sherzod; Tamrin, Mohd Izzuddin Mohd; Azeddine, Messikh

2015-12-01

In this paper, we define Watson-Crick context-free grammars, as an extension of Watson-Crick regular grammars and Watson-Crick linear grammars with context-free grammar rules. We show the relation of Watson-Crick (regular and linear) grammars to the sticker systems, and study some of the important closure properties of the Watson-Crick grammars. We establish that the Watson-Crick regular grammars are closed under almost all of the main closure operations, while the differences between other Watson-Crick grammars with their corresponding Chomsky grammars depend on the computational power of the Watson-Crick grammars which still need to be studied.

Enhancing Instruction through Technology.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Greenleaf, Connie; Gee, Mary Kay

Following an introductory section that provides a rationale for using computers in workplace literacy classes, this guide reviews six computer programs and provides activities that teachers can use with the programs in teaching workplace literacy classes. The six computer programs reviewed are as follows: "Grammar Games,""Spell It 3,""The Way…

Analyse de discours a entree lexicale (Lexical Discourse Analysis)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Marcellesi, J.-B.

1976-01-01

Analyzes the resolutions of the Socialist and Communist parties in France in 1924 and 1925, and affirms the notion of a counter-grammar and counter-transformations. Also analyzes the linguistic environment of the most frequently used words. (Text is in French.) (AM)

Comparison of Classical and Lazy Approach in SCG Compiler

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jirák, Ota; Kolář, Dušan

2011-09-01

The existing parsing methods of scattered context grammar usually expand nonterminals deeply in the pushdown. This expansion is implemented by using either a linked list, or some kind of an auxiliary pushdown. This paper describes the parsing algorithm of an LL(1) scattered context grammar. The given algorithm merges two principles together. The first approach is a table-driven parsing method commonly used for parsing of the context-free grammars. The second is a delayed execution used in functional programming. The main part of this paper is a proof of equivalence between the common principle (the whole rule is applied at once) and our approach (execution of the rules is delayed). Therefore, this approach works with the pushdown top only. In the most cases, the second approach is faster than the first one. Finally, the future work is discussed.

"Software Tools" to Improve Student Writing.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Oates, Rita Haugh

1987-01-01

Reviews several software packages that analyze text readability, check for spelling and style problems, offer desktop publishing capabilities, teach interviewing skills, and teach grammar using a computer game. (SRT)

Search for Minimal and Semi-Minimal Rule Sets in Incremental Learning of Context-Free and Definite Clause Grammars

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Imada, Keita; Nakamura, Katsuhiko

This paper describes recent improvements to Synapse system for incremental learning of general context-free grammars (CFGs) and definite clause grammars (DCGs) from positive and negative sample strings. An important feature of our approach is incremental learning, which is realized by a rule generation mechanism called “bridging” based on bottom-up parsing for positive samples and the search for rule sets. The sizes of rule sets and the computation time depend on the search strategies. In addition to the global search for synthesizing minimal rule sets and serial search, another method for synthesizing semi-optimum rule sets, we incorporate beam search to the system for synthesizing semi-minimal rule sets. The paper shows several experimental results on learning CFGs and DCGs, and we analyze the sizes of rule sets and the computation time.

Assessment of grammar optimizes language tasks for the intracarotid amobarbital procedure.

PubMed

Połczyńska, Monika; Kuhn, Taylor; You, S Christine; Walshaw, Patricia; Curtiss, Susan; Bookheimer, Susan

2017-11-01

A previous study showed that assessment of language laterality could be improved by adding grammar tests to the recovery phase of the intracarotid amobarbital procedure (IAP) (Połczyńska et al. 2014). The aim of this study was to further investigate the extent to which grammar tests lateralize language function during the recovery phase of the IAP in a larger patient sample. Forty patients with drug-resistant epilepsy (14 females, thirty-two right-handed, mean age 38.5years, SD=10.6) participated in this study. On EEG, 24 patients had seizures originating in the left hemisphere (LH), 13 in the right hemisphere (RH), and 4 demonstrated mixed seizure origin. Thirty participants (75%) had bilateral injections, and ten (25%) had unilateral injections (five RH and five LH). Based on results from the encoding phase, we segregated our study participants to a LH language dominant and a mixed dominance group. In the recovery phase of the IAP, the participants were administered a new grammar test (the CYCLE-N) and a standard language test. We analyzed the laterality index measure and effect sizes in the two tests. In the LH-dominant group, the CYCLE-N generated more profound language deficits in the recovery phase than the standard after injection to either hemisphere (p<0.001). At the same time, the laterality index for the grammar tasks was still higher than for the standard tests. Critically, the CYCLE-N administered in the recovery phase was nearly as effective as the standard tests given during the encoding phase. The results may be significant for individuals with epilepsy undergoing IAP. The grammar tests may be a highly efficient measure for lateralizing language function in the recovery phase. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Rx for Tutor Training.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rubenstein, Ilene; And Others

Tutor training programs in composition which emphasize interpersonal skills while offering concentrated correctness doses of mechanics and grammar are inherently limiting. While interpersonal skills are important, they only superficially address the complex situation of tutoring. A prescription for a healthy tutor program, one which would allow…

Automated insertion of sequences into a ribosomal RNA alignment: An application of computational linguistics in molecular biology

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Taylor, R.C.

This thesis involved the construction of (1) a grammar that incorporates knowledge on base invariancy and secondary structure in a molecule and (2) a parser engine that uses the grammar to position bases into the structural subunits of the molecule. These concepts were combined with a novel pinning technique to form a tool that semi-automates insertion of a new species into the alignment for the 16S rRNA molecule (a component of the ribosome) maintained by Dr. Carl Woese's group at the University of Illinois at Urbana. The tool was tested on species extracted from the alignment and on a groupmore » of entirely new species. The results were very encouraging, and the tool should be substantial aid to the curators of the 16S alignment. The construction of the grammar was itself automated, allowing application of the tool to alignments for other molecules. The logic programming language Prolog was used to construct all programs involved. The computational linguistics approach used here was found to be a useful way to attach the problem of insertion into an alignment.« less

Automated insertion of sequences into a ribosomal RNA alignment: An application of computational linguistics in molecular biology

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Taylor, Ronald C.

This thesis involved the construction of (1) a grammar that incorporates knowledge on base invariancy and secondary structure in a molecule and (2) a parser engine that uses the grammar to position bases into the structural subunits of the molecule. These concepts were combined with a novel pinning technique to form a tool that semi-automates insertion of a new species into the alignment for the 16S rRNA molecule (a component of the ribosome) maintained by Dr. Carl Woese`s group at the University of Illinois at Urbana. The tool was tested on species extracted from the alignment and on a groupmore » of entirely new species. The results were very encouraging, and the tool should be substantial aid to the curators of the 16S alignment. The construction of the grammar was itself automated, allowing application of the tool to alignments for other molecules. The logic programming language Prolog was used to construct all programs involved. The computational linguistics approach used here was found to be a useful way to attach the problem of insertion into an alignment.« less

Automated Error Detection for Developing Grammar Proficiency of ESL Learners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Feng, Hui-Hsien; Saricaoglu, Aysel; Chukharev-Hudilainen, Evgeny

2016-01-01

Thanks to natural language processing technologies, computer programs are actively being used not only for holistic scoring, but also for formative evaluation of writing. CyWrite is one such program that is under development. The program is built upon Second Language Acquisition theories and aims to assist ESL learners in higher education by…

A Program That Acquires Language Using Positive and Negative Feedback.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brand, James

1987-01-01

Describes the language learning program "Acquire," which is a sample of grammar induction. It is a learning algorithm based on a pattern-matching scheme, using both a positive and negative network to reduce overgeneration. Language learning programs may be useful as tutorials for learning the syntax of a foreign language. (Author/LMO)

Defense et illustration de la grammaire philologique (An Example and a Defense of Philological Grammar)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dupont, Louis

1972-01-01

Author cites philological grammar" as one of three ways of treating language. The other two approaches to language are traditional grammar and linguistic grammar or transformational generative grammar. Philological grammar stresses the art of reading. (DS)

Instructional Variables in Meaningful Learning of Computer Programming.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mayer, Richard E.

Some 120 undergraduate students participated in experiments to learn how novice computer programers learn to interact with the computer. Two instructional booklets were used: A "rule" booklet consisted of definitions and examples of seven modified FORTRAN statements and appropriate grammar rules; the "model" booklet was…

The Unmaking of a Modern Synthesis: Noam Chomsky, Charles Hockett, and the Politics of Behaviorism, 1955-1965.

PubMed

Radick, Gregory

2016-03-01

A familiar story about mid-twentieth-century American psychology tells of the abandonment of behaviorism for cognitive science. Between these two, however, lay a scientific borderland, muddy and much traveled. This essay relocates the origins of the Chomskyan program in linguistics there. Following his introduction of transformational generative grammar, Noam Chomsky (b. 1928) mounted a highly publicized attack on behaviorist psychology. Yet when he first developed that approach to grammar, he was a defender of behaviorism. His antibehaviorism emerged only in the course of what became a systematic repudiation of the work of the Cornell linguist C. F. Hockett (1916-2000). In the name of the positivist Unity of Science movement, Hockett had synthesized an approach to grammar based on statistical communication theory; a behaviorist view of language acquisition in children as a process of association and analogy; and an interest in uncovering the Darwinian origins of language. In criticizing Hockett on grammar, Chomsky came to engage gradually and critically with the whole Hockettian synthesis. Situating Chomsky thus within his own disciplinary matrix suggests lessons for students of disciplinary politics generally and--famously with Chomsky--the place of political discipline within a scientific life.

Grammar A and Grammar B: Rhetorical Life and Death.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Guinn, Dorothy Margaret

In the past, writers have chosen stylistic devices within the parameters of the traditional grammar of style, "Grammar A," characterized by analyticity, coherence, and clarity. But many contemporary writers are creating a new grammar of style, "Grammar B," characterized by synchronicity, discontinuity, and ambiguity, which…

Representational Issues in Systemic Functional Grammar and Systemic Grammar and Functional Unification Grammar. ISI Reprint Series.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Matthiessen, Christian; Kasper, Robert

Consisting of two separate papers, "Representational Issues in Systemic Functional Grammar," by Christian Matthiessen and "Systemic Grammar and Functional Unification Grammar," by Robert Kasper, this document deals with systemic aspects of natural language processing and linguistic theory and with computational applications of…

Grammar and Grammaring: Toward Modes for English Grammar Teaching in China

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nan, Chengyu

2015-01-01

The value of grammar instruction in foreign language learning and teaching has been a focus of debate for quite some time, which has resulted in different views on grammar and grammar teaching as well as different teaching approaches based on different perspectives or in different language learning contexts. To explore some modes for grammar…

Teaching Grammar and Testing Grammar in the English Primary School: The Impact on Teachers and Their Teaching of the Grammar Element of the Statutory Test in Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar (SPaG)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Safford, Kimberly

2016-01-01

The research examined the impact on teachers of the grammar element of a new statutory test in Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar (SPaG) in primary schools in England. The research aimed to evaluate the nature and the extent of changes to the teaching of grammar and to wider literacy teaching since the introduction of the test in 2013. The research…

Writing Matters to Urban Middle Level Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yost, Deborah S.; Vogel, Robert

2012-01-01

This article provides an overview of the Writers Matter program, which allows adolescents to use their life stories as a vehicle for self-expression and writing skill development. Evaluations of the program have show increased writing skills among participating students in the areas of focus, content, organization, and grammar. Additional benefits…

The Listening and Reading Comprehension (LARC) Program....Experiential Based Sequential Training.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Blumenstyk, Holly; And Others

The LARC (Listening and Reading Comprehension) Program, an experiential based story grammar approach to listening and reading comprehension is described, and a pilot study of its effectiveness with communication handicapped children is reviewed. The LARC framework translates children's own recent experiences into sequenced story episodes which are…

Language for Survival: A Model Study-Abroad Program

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Turner, Thomas; And Others

1975-01-01

In 1971 the College of the Holy Cross (Minnesota) set up a summer language and cultural program in Cuernavaca, Mexico for their students of Spanish. After intensive grammar in the classroom students are sent out on "survival" situations involving verbal communication with Mexicans in the market place, schools, prisons, etc. (SC)

The "Motherese" of Mr. Rogers: A Description of the Dialogue of Educational Television Programs.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rice, Mabel L.; Haight, Patti L.

Dialogue from 30-minute samples from "Sesame Street" and "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood" was coded for grammar, content, and discourse. Grammatical analysis used the LINGQUEST computer-assisted language assessment program (Mordecai, Palen, and Palmer 1982). Content coding was based on categories developed by Rice (1984) and…

Grammar! A Conference Report.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

King, Lid, Ed.; Boaks, Peter, Ed.

Papers from a conference on the teaching of grammar, particularly in second language instruction, include: "Grammar: Acquisition and Use" (Richard Johnstone); "Grammar and Communication" (Brian Page); "Linguistic Progression and Increasing Independence" (Bernardette Holmes); "La grammaire? C'est du bricolage!" ("Grammar? That's Hardware!") (Barry…

The Grammar Gallimaufry: Teaching Students to Challenge the Grammar Gods

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

House, Jeff

2009-01-01

How a person teaches grammar depends on what he or she believes it does. Some see grammar as a set of rules, inherited from wise forefathers. For them, teaching grammar means making students aware of, and then holding them to, these rules. Others see grammar as an expression of style, an invitation to the writer to explore how to create a…

Efficient Grammar Induction Algorithm with Parse Forests from Real Corpora

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kurihara, Kenichi; Kameya, Yoshitaka; Sato, Taisuke

The task of inducing grammar structures has received a great deal of attention. The reasons why researchers have studied are different; to use grammar induction as the first stage in building large treebanks or to make up better language models. However, grammar induction has inherent computational complexity. To overcome it, some grammar induction algorithms add new production rules incrementally. They refine the grammar while keeping their computational complexity low. In this paper, we propose a new efficient grammar induction algorithm. Although our algorithm is similar to algorithms which learn a grammar incrementally, our algorithm uses the graphical EM algorithm instead of the Inside-Outside algorithm. We report results of learning experiments in terms of learning speeds. The results show that our algorithm learns a grammar in constant time regardless of the size of the grammar. Since our algorithm decreases syntactic ambiguities in each step, our algorithm reduces required time for learning. This constant-time learning considerably affects learning time for larger grammars. We also reports results of evaluation of criteria to choose nonterminals. Our algorithm refines a grammar based on a nonterminal in each step. Since there can be several criteria to decide which nonterminal is the best, we evaluate them by learning experiments.

Teaching Grammar

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Crawford, William J.

2013-01-01

Grammar is a component in all language skills: reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Teachers need to know rules of grammar (teacher knowledge) as well as techniques that help students use grammar effectively and effortlessly (teaching knowledge). Using reflective practice to help teachers become comfortable with teaching grammar, this…

A Program Evaluation of the Language Lab™: Response to Intervention Program for Teaching Grammar, Vocabulary, and Storytelling

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wiechmann, JoAnn; Richardson, Martha; Jones, Don

2014-01-01

This program evaluation study addressed the struggle of local elementary school speech-language pathologists (SLPs) in a school district to provide evidence-based intervention in language for students below grade level as required by the U.S. Department of Education. Recently, Language Lab™ was published to address the needs of oral language…

Constraining Multiple Grammars

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hopp, Holger

2014-01-01

This article offers the author's commentary on the Multiple Grammars (MG) language acquisition theory proposed by Luiz Amaral and Tom Roeper in the present issue. Multiple Grammars advances the claim that optionality is a constitutive characteristic of any one grammar, with interlanguage grammars being perhaps the clearest examples of a…

La Grammaire: Lectures (Grammar: Readings).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Arrive, Michel; Chevalier, Jean-Claude

A historical perspective of French grammar is developed in this chronologically arranged reader. Part One includes material on French grammar from the 16th to the 19th century: (1) the "Premiere Epoque": 1530-1660, (2) the general grammar of Port-Royal, and (3) the "philosophical grammars" treating syntax, sentence structure, and discourse…

What English Teachers Need to Know about Grammar.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Murdick, William

1996-01-01

Suggests that English teachers need to know that grammar is a difficult subject; know what children know about grammar; know that grammatical error is complex; and know more about language than just grammar. Concludes with the advice of Noam Chomsky--that grammar should be taught for its own intrinsic interest. (RS)

Pourquoi les exercices de grammaire? (Why Grammar Exercises?)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bastuji, Jacqueline

1977-01-01

Recent theories and experiementation running the gamut from the absolute necessity of grammar to its uselessness in teaching a language form the basis of this article. Topics covered are: a typology of the grammar exercise; explicit grammar and linguistic competence; grammar exercises responding to real needs. (Text is in French.) (AMH)

Implementation of a Natural Language Processor Using Functional Grammar.

DTIC Science & Technology

1985-12-01

in a completely different manner. [Ref. 5:pp. 81-883 ; "C. CASE GRAMMAR When Chomsky published his Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, 0 many linguists...approach was developed at Stanford University .[Ref. 7:pp. 187-2473 E. FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR Shortly after Transformational Grammar and Case Grammar ... Grammar is a radical approach to linguistic theory when looked at from the Chomsky point of view. However, it compares favorably with the traditional

The Role of Simple Semantics in the Process of Artificial Grammar Learning.

PubMed

Öttl, Birgit; Jäger, Gerhard; Kaup, Barbara

2017-10-01

This study investigated the effect of semantic information on artificial grammar learning (AGL). Recursive grammars of different complexity levels (regular language, mirror language, copy language) were investigated in a series of AGL experiments. In the with-semantics condition, participants acquired semantic information prior to the AGL experiment; in the without-semantics control condition, participants did not receive semantic information. It was hypothesized that semantics would generally facilitate grammar acquisition and that the learning benefit in the with-semantics conditions would increase with increasing grammar complexity. Experiment 1 showed learning effects for all grammars but no performance difference between conditions. Experiment 2 replicated the absence of a semantic benefit for all grammars even though semantic information was more prominent during grammar acquisition as compared to Experiment 1. Thus, we did not find evidence for the idea that semantics facilitates grammar acquisition, which seems to support the view of an independent syntactic processing component.

A new variant of Petri net controlled grammars

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jan, Nurhidaya Mohamad; Turaev, Sherzod; Fong, Wan Heng; Sarmin, Nor Haniza

2015-10-01

A Petri net controlled grammar is a Petri net with respect to a context-free grammar where the successful derivations of the grammar can be simulated using the occurrence sequences of the net. In this paper, we introduce a new variant of Petri net controlled grammars, called a place-labeled Petri net controlled grammar, which is a context-free grammar equipped with a Petri net and a function which maps places of the net to productions of the grammar. The language consists of all terminal strings that can be obtained by parallelly applying multisets of the rules which are the images of the sets of the input places of transitions in a successful occurrence sequence of the Petri net. We study the effect of the different labeling strategies to the computational power and establish lower and upper bounds for the generative capacity of place-labeled Petri net controlled grammars.

ABE/Pre-Vocational Skills Program. A Teacher's Guide and Curriculum for Pre-Clerical Training.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Johnson, Brenda J.

This manual is designed for teacher use for a 10-week course to prepare chronically unemployed adults to enter traditional clerical courses or job training programs offered by temporary-employment-agencies. The competency-based curriculum provides adults with basic skills in grammar, usage, reading, writing, listening, mathematics, keyboarding,…

The Multi-Disciplinary Graduate Program in Educational Research. Final Report, Part II; Methodoloqical Trilogy.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lazarsfeld, Paul F., Ed.

Part two of a seven-section, final report on the Multi-Disciplinary Graduate Program in Educational Research, this document contains discussions of quantification and reason analysis. Quantification is presented as a language consisting of sentences (graphs and tables), words, (classificatory instruments), and grammar (rules for constructing and…

English 291, 292, and 293--Advance Program: Man's Power with Words.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jefferson County Board of Education, Louisville, KY.

For those students who qualify, the Advance Program offers an opportunity to follow a stimulating curriculum designed for the academically talented. This guide for ninth grade English was developed to broaden the student's skill and understanding of the history of the English language, composition, grammar, vocabulary development, and literature.…

Grammaire: L'informatique a la rescousse (Grammar: Computer Technology to the Rescue).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Malandain, Jean-Louis

1990-01-01

The use of computer software to teach grammatical constructions faster by developing good linguistic "reflexes" is described. The program has three levels: choice of gender determiner; impact of the initial letter of the word on the determiner's form; and placement of adjectives. The program also provides reinforcement for speed of…

Checking the Grammar Checker: Integrating Grammar Instruction with Writing.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McAlexander, Patricia J.

2000-01-01

Notes Rei Noguchi's recommendation of integrating grammar instruction with writing instruction and teaching only the most vital terms and the most frequently made errors. Presents a project that provides a review of the grammar lessons, applies many grammar rules specifically to the students' writing, and teaches students the effective use of the…

Swahili Learners' Reference Grammar. African Language Learners' Reference Grammar Series.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thompson, Katrina Daly; Schleicher, Antonia Folarin

This reference grammar is written for speakers of English who are learning Swahili. Because many language learners are not familiar with the grammatical terminology, this book explains the basic terminology and concepts of English grammar that are necessary for understanding the grammar of Swahili. It assumes no formal knowledge of English grammar…

Effective Grammar Teaching: Lessons from Confident Grammar Teachers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Petraki, Eleni; Hill, Deborah

2011-01-01

Learning the grammar of a language is an integral part of learning a second or foreign language. Studies on teacher beliefs, teacher language awareness (TLA) and grammar teaching have reported that the majority of English language teachers recognise the importance of teaching grammar (Borg, 2001; Borg & Burns, 2008). At the same time, many…

Effect of X-Word Grammar and Traditional Grammar Instruction on Grammatical Accuracy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Livingston, Sue; Toce, Andi; Casey, Toce; Montoya, Fernando; Hart, Bonny R.; O'Flaherty, Carmela

2018-01-01

This study first briefly describes an instructional approach to teaching grammar known as X-Word Grammar and then compares its effectiveness in assisting students in achieving grammatical accuracy with traditionally taught grammar. Two groups of L2 pre-college students were taught using curricula and practice procedures in two different grammar…

Proceedings of a Conference--"The Future of Grammar in American Schools" (Winchester, VA, August 10-11, 1990).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

National Council of Teachers of English, Urbana, IL. Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar.

Providing alternatives to the way grammar is taught, this proceedings includes every paper (or summary) except one delivered at a conference on the future of grammar in American schools. Papers in the proceedings are: "Keynote: The Future of Grammar in American Schools" (Martha Kolln); "Approaches to Grammar: Teaching &…

Understanding the Complex Processes in Developing Student Teachers' Knowledge about Grammar

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Svalberg, Agneta M.-L.

2015-01-01

This article takes the view that grammar is driven by user choices and is therefore complex and dynamic. This has implications for the teaching of grammar in language teacher education and how teachers' cognitions about grammar, and hence their own grammar teaching, might change. In this small, interpretative study, the participants--students on…

On Her Majesty's Service

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Walker, J. Robert

1972-01-01

Presents a quick overview of British Educational System based upon the author's year of experience in a British Grammar School under Teacher Exchange Program. Significant points to note are: student selection procedures for universities, examination system, and physics teaching. (PS)

Improving DHH students' grammar through an individualized software program.

PubMed

Cannon, Joanna E; Easterbrooks, Susan R; Gagné, Phill; Beal-Alvarez, Jennifer

2011-01-01

The purpose of this study was to determine if the frequent use of a targeted, computer software grammar instruction program, used as an individualized classroom activity, would influence the comprehension of morphosyntax structures (determiners, tense, and complementizers) in deaf/hard-of-hearing (DHH) participants who use American Sign Language (ASL). Twenty-six students from an urban day school for the deaf participated in this study. Two hierarchical linear modeling growth curve analyses showed that the influence of LanguageLinks: Syntax Assessment and Intervention (LL) resulted in statistically significant gains in participants' comprehension of morphosyntax structures. Two dependent t tests revealed statistically significant results between the pre- and postintervention assessments on the Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation-Norm Referenced. The daily use of LL increased the morphosyntax comprehension of the participants in this study and may be a promising practice for DHH students who use ASL.

Entangled Parametric Hierarchies: Problems for an Overspecified Universal Grammar

PubMed Central

Boeckx, Cedric; Leivada, Evelina

2013-01-01

This study addresses the feasibility of the classical notion of parameter in linguistic theory from the perspective of parametric hierarchies. A novel program-based analysis is implemented in order to show certain empirical problems related to these hierarchies. The program was developed on the basis of an enriched data base spanning 23 contemporary and 5 ancient languages. The empirical issues uncovered cast doubt on classical parametric models of language acquisition as well as on the conceptualization of an overspecified Universal Grammar that has parameters among its primitives. Pinpointing these issues leads to the proposal that (i) the (bio)logical problem of language acquisition does not amount to a process of triggering innately pre-wired values of parameters and (ii) it paves the way for viewing language, epigenetic (‘parametric’) variation as an externalization-related epiphenomenon, whose learning component may be more important than what sometimes is assumed. PMID:24019867

The Effects of Communicative Grammar Teaching on Students' Achievement of Grammatical Knowledge and Oral Production

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ho, Pham Vu Phi; The Binh, Nguyen

2014-01-01

So far the students of Le Hong Phong Junior High School have been taught grammar with GTM (Grammar-Translation Method), which just prepares learners for conventional grammar-paper tests. Despite their considerable knowledge of grammar, the students fail to use the language they have learnt to communicate in real-life situations. The purpose of…

Application of grammar-based codes for lossless compression of digital mammograms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Xiaoli; Krishnan, Srithar; Ma, Ngok-Wah

2006-01-01

A newly developed grammar-based lossless source coding theory and its implementation was proposed in 1999 and 2000, respectively, by Yang and Kieffer. The code first transforms the original data sequence into an irreducible context-free grammar, which is then compressed using arithmetic coding. In the study of grammar-based coding for mammography applications, we encountered two issues: processing time and limited number of single-character grammar G variables. For the first issue, we discover a feature that can simplify the matching subsequence search in the irreducible grammar transform process. Using this discovery, an extended grammar code technique is proposed and the processing time of the grammar code can be significantly reduced. For the second issue, we propose to use double-character symbols to increase the number of grammar variables. Under the condition that all the G variables have the same probability of being used, our analysis shows that the double- and single-character approaches have the same compression rates. By using the methods proposed, we show that the grammar code can outperform three other schemes: Lempel-Ziv-Welch (LZW), arithmetic, and Huffman on compression ratio, and has similar error tolerance capabilities as LZW coding under similar circumstances.

Dialog detection in narrative video by shot and face analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kroon, B.; Nesvadba, J.; Hanjalic, A.

2007-01-01

The proliferation of captured personal and broadcast content in personal consumer archives necessitates comfortable access to stored audiovisual content. Intuitive retrieval and navigation solutions require however a semantic level that cannot be reached by generic multimedia content analysis alone. A fusion with film grammar rules can help to boost the reliability significantly. The current paper describes the fusion of low-level content analysis cues including face parameters and inter-shot similarities to segment commercial content into film grammar rule-based entities and subsequently classify those sequences into so-called shot reverse shots, i.e. dialog sequences. Moreover shot reverse shot specific mid-level cues are analyzed augmenting the shot reverse shot information with dialog specific descriptions.

Library List: A Suggested Library Collection for Undergraduate Linguistics Programs. Linguistics in the Undergraduate Curriculum, Appendix 6.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Linguistic Society of America, Washington, DC.

A list of linguistics-related holdings in the Middlebury College (Vermont) library is presented as an example of a well-developed library collection for an undergraduate linguistics program. The materials are listed under 10 headings corresponding to the best-represented subareas in the collection: linguistics, semantics, grammar (comparative and…

Teaching the Grammar and Syntax of Business German: Problems and Practical Suggestions. Innovative Strategies and Exercises for Computer-Aided Instruction: Word Order Variation.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Paulsell, Patricia R.

A computer program is described that is a substack of the "Business German" HyperCard program previously developed by Paulsell and designed as a tutorial to be used with materials for a business German course on the third year college level. The program consists of six stacks, a central one providing graphics-based information on Germany…

A Construction Grammar for the Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Holme, Randal

2010-01-01

Construction grammars (Lakoff, Women, fire and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the Mind, University of Chicago Press, 1987; Langacker, Foundations of cognitive grammar: Theoretical pre-requisites, Stanford University Press, 1987; Croft, Radical construction grammar: Syntactic theory in typological perspective, Oxford University…

Didactique des langues etrangeres: De quoi parle-t-on quand on parle de grammaire? (Didactic of Foreign Languages: What Are We Talking About When We Talk About Grammar?).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Berche, Merce Pujol

1998-01-01

A discussion of the term "grammar" in the context of second-language teaching and learning looks at various approaches to/definitions of grammar, including linguistic, psychological, sociological, and pedagogical grammars. Pedagogical grammars are viewed as learning tools for the second-language classroom, and their properties and components are…

A Grammatical Approach to RNA-RNA Interaction Prediction

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kato, Yuki; Akutsu, Tatsuya; Seki, Hiroyuki

2007-11-01

Much attention has been paid to two interacting RNA molecules involved in post-transcriptional control of gene expression. Although there have been a few studies on RNA-RNA interaction prediction based on dynamic programming algorithm, no grammar-based approach has been proposed. The purpose of this paper is to provide a new modeling for RNA-RNA interaction based on multiple context-free grammar (MCFG). We present a polynomial time parsing algorithm for finding the most likely derivation tree for the stochastic version of MCFG, which is applicable to RNA joint secondary structure prediction including kissing hairpin loops. Also, elementary tests on RNA-RNA interaction prediction have shown that the proposed method is comparable to Alkan et al.'s method.

Grammar-Supported 3d Indoor Reconstruction from Point Clouds for As-Built Bim

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Becker, S.; Peter, M.; Fritsch, D.

2015-03-01

The paper presents a grammar-based approach for the robust automatic reconstruction of 3D interiors from raw point clouds. The core of the approach is a 3D indoor grammar which is an extension of our previously published grammar concept for the modeling of 2D floor plans. The grammar allows for the modeling of buildings whose horizontal, continuous floors are traversed by hallways providing access to the rooms as it is the case for most office buildings or public buildings like schools, hospitals or hotels. The grammar is designed in such way that it can be embedded in an iterative automatic learning process providing a seamless transition from LOD3 to LOD4 building models. Starting from an initial low-level grammar, automatically derived from the window representations of an available LOD3 building model, hypotheses about indoor geometries can be generated. The hypothesized indoor geometries are checked against observation data - here 3D point clouds - collected in the interior of the building. The verified and accepted geometries form the basis for an automatic update of the initial grammar. By this, the knowledge content of the initial grammar is enriched, leading to a grammar with increased quality. This higher-level grammar can then be applied to predict realistic geometries to building parts where only sparse observation data are available. Thus, our approach allows for the robust generation of complete 3D indoor models whose quality can be improved continuously as soon as new observation data are fed into the grammar-based reconstruction process. The feasibility of our approach is demonstrated based on a real-world example.

Applying A Formal Language of Command and Control For Interoperability Between Systems

DTIC Science & Technology

2008-05-21

Initially, it must be determined which type of grammar is to be used. The Chomsky hierarchy specifies that grammars can be Type 0 (unrestricted...future research. 2. Development of Formal Grammars In his book “Syntactic Structures” [5], published in 1957, Noam Chomsky answered the question...be finite because recursion is allowed. 2.2 Types of Grammars Chomsky defines four types of grammar . They are ordered within what is

The Effects of an Extensive Reading Program on Improving English as Foreign Language Proficiency in University Level Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Alzu'bi, Mohammad Akram

2014-01-01

This study aimed at investigating the impact of extensive reading on improving reading proficiency. The study tried to find the effect of ER on EFL student's reading, vocabulary and grammar. The researcher designed two instruments; a program based on the extensive reading strategy and general test. Forty-one university students who study English…

Predicting Student Grades in Learning Management Systems with Multiple Instance Genetic Programming

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zafra, Amelia; Ventura, Sebastian

2009-01-01

The ability to predict a student's performance could be useful in a great number of different ways associated with university-level learning. In this paper, a grammar guided genetic programming algorithm, G3P-MI, has been applied to predict if the student will fail or pass a certain course and identifies activities to promote learning in a…

Bilinguals' Creativity and Syntactic Theory: Evidence for Emerging Grammar.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bhatia, Tej K.

1989-01-01

Examines a code mixed variety of English and Hindi called Filmi English, which reflects the linguistic influence of the Indian film industry. A corpus of more than 2,000 intrasentential code-mixed sentences drawn from a film magazine, "Stardust," is analyzed. (Author/OD)

Generic Detection of Register Realignment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ďurfina, Lukáš; Kolář, Dušan

2011-09-01

The register realignment is a method of binary obfuscation and it is used by malware writers. The paper introduces the method how register realignment can be recognized by analysis based on the scattered context grammars. Such an analysis includes exploration of bytes affected by realignment, finding new valid values for them, building the scattered context grammar and parse an obfuscated code by this grammar. The created grammar has LL property--an ability for parsing by this type of grammar.

Generic Detection of Register Realignment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Durfina, Lukáš; Kolář, Dušan

2011-09-01

The register realignment is a method of binary obfuscation and it is used by malware writers. The paper introduces the method how register realignment can be recognized by analysis based on the scattered context grammars. Such an analysis includes exploration of bytes affected by realignment, finding new valid values for them, building the scattered context grammar and parse an obfuscated code by this grammar. The created grammar has LL property—an ability for parsing by this type of grammar.

Parse Completion: A Study of an Inductive Domain

DTIC Science & Technology

1987-07-01

for Right Linear and Chomsky Normal Form grammars in detail. These two grammar classes were chosen as they can capture the classes of Regular and...Linear and Chomsky Normal Form grammars the allowed RHS formats could be divided into those which introduced new non-terminals and those which reused... Chomsky Normal Form grammars can both be shown to define a partial order over the set of grammars consistent with the examples. (Note that this is a

Effects of grammar instruction and fluency training on the learning of the and a by native speakers of japanese

PubMed Central

Shimamune, Satoru; Jitsumori, Masako

1999-01-01

In a computer-assisted sentence completion task, the effects of grammar instruction and fluency training on learning the use of the definite and indefinite articles of English were examined. Forty-eight native Japanese-speaking students were assigned to four groups: with grammar/accuracy (G/A), without grammar/accuracy (N/A), with grammar/fluency (G/F), and without grammar/fluency (N/F). In the G/A and N/A groups, training continued until performance reached 100% accuracy (accuracy criterion). In the G/F and N/F groups, training continued until 100% accuracy was reached and the correct responses were made at a high speed (fluency criterion). Grammar instruction was given to participants in the G/A and G/F groups but not to those in the N/A and N/F groups. Generalization to new sentences was tested immediately after reaching the required criterion. High levels of generalization occurred, regardless of the type of mastery criterion and whether the grammar instruction was given. Retention tests were conducted 4, 6, and 8 weeks after training. Fluency training effectively improved retention of the performance attained without the grammar instruction. This effect was diminished when grammar instruction was given during training. Learning grammatical rules was not necessary for the generalized use of appropriate definite and indefinite articles or for the maintenance of the performance attained through fluency training. PMID:22477154

Performance of children with developmental dyslexia on high and low topological entropy artificial grammar learning task.

PubMed

Katan, Pesia; Kahta, Shani; Sasson, Ayelet; Schiff, Rachel

2017-07-01

Graph complexity as measured by topological entropy has been previously shown to affect performance on artificial grammar learning tasks among typically developing children. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of graph complexity on implicit sequential learning among children with developmental dyslexia. Our goal was to determine whether children's performance depends on the complexity level of the grammar system learned. We conducted two artificial grammar learning experiments that compared performance of children with developmental dyslexia with that of age- and reading level-matched controls. Experiment 1 was a high topological entropy artificial grammar learning task that aimed to establish implicit learning phenomena in children with developmental dyslexia using previously published experimental conditions. Experiment 2 is a lower topological entropy variant of that task. Results indicated that given a high topological entropy grammar system, children with developmental dyslexia who were similar to the reading age-matched control group had substantial difficulty in performing the task as compared to typically developing children, who exhibited intact implicit learning of the grammar. On the other hand, when tested on a lower topological entropy grammar system, all groups performed above chance level, indicating that children with developmental dyslexia were able to identify rules from a given grammar system. The results reinforced the significance of graph complexity when experimenting with artificial grammar learning tasks, particularly with dyslexic participants.

The Necessity of Grammar Teaching

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wang, Fengjuan

2010-01-01

Mastering grammar is the foundation in the proficiency of a language. Grammar teaching is also an essential part of language teaching. However, with the communicative approach was introduced into China, many foreign language teachers gradually make little of grammar teaching. In terms of the theory of linguistics, this paper specifically explores…

Overcoming the Grammar Deficit: The Role of Information Technology in Teaching German Grammar to Undergraduates.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hall, Christopher

1998-01-01

Examines how application of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) and information technology can be used to overcome "grammar deficit" seen in many British undergraduate German students. A combination of explicit, implicit, and exploratory grammar teaching approaches uses diverse resources, including word processing packages,…

English Grammar in School Textbooks: A Critical Survey.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Collis, Peter; Hollo, Carmella; Mar, Juliet

1997-01-01

Reports findings from a critical analysis of English grammar books and language books with grammar content used in New South Wales (Australia) elementary and secondary schools. Books surveyed showed a low level of awareness of developments in contemporary linguistics, particularly the structural approach to grammar instruction. (Author/MSE)

Teaching Grammar: What Really Works

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Benjamin, Amy; Berger, Joan

2010-01-01

In this book, the authors share procedures for teaching grammar effectively and dynamically, in ways that appeal to students and teachers alike. Ideal for teachers just beginning their work in grammar instruction, this book includes day-by-day units and reproducibles to help them embed grammar lessons into writing instruction. Using visuals,…

Speech-Enabled Interfaces for Travel Information Systems with Large Grammars

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhao, Baoli; Allen, Tony; Bargiela, Andrzej

This paper introduces three grammar-segmentation methods capable of handling the large grammar issues associated with producing a real-time speech-enabled VXML bus travel application for London. Large grammars tend to produce relatively slow recognition interfaces and this work shows how this limitation can be successfully addressed. Comparative experimental results show that the novel last-word recognition based grammar segmentation method described here achieves an optimal balance between recognition rate, speed of processing and naturalness of interaction.

GOTO Poetry.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kern, Alfred

1983-01-01

Describes an experimental course at Allegheny College in computer-generated poetry, which required students to deal simultaneously with grammar and rhetoric, poetics, the computer and BASIC, logic and artificial intelligence in order to create programs that would generate poetry. Examples of verses produced by course participants are included.…

"I'll Take Commas for $200": An Instructional Intervention Using Games to Help Students Master Grammar Skills

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bullard, Sue Burzynski; Anderson, Nancy

2014-01-01

Effective writing requires mastering grammar. For journalists, this mastery is critical because research shows poor grammar erodes media credibility. College writing instructors say students do not understand basic grammar concepts, and greater numbers of students are enrolling in remedial writing classes. This quasi-experimental mixed methods…

Teacher to Teacher: What Is Your Most Compelling Reason for Teaching Grammar?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

English Journal, 2006

2006-01-01

This article presents compelling reasons from teachers why they teach grammar. Amy Benjamin from Hendrick Hudson High School says, she teaches grammar for two reasons. The first is that grammar instruction gives students metalanguage, "language about language." The second reason is that students are interested in language--its changes and…

Cognitive Adequacy in Structural-Functional Theories of Language

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Butler, Christopher S.

2008-01-01

This paper discusses the role played by cognition in three linguistic theories which may be labelled as "structural-functional": Functional (Discourse) Grammar, Role and Reference Grammar and Systemic Functional Grammar. It argues that if we are to achieve true cognitive adequacy, we must go well beyond the grammar itself to include the processes…

Reframing the English Grammar Schools Debate

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Morris, Rebecca; Perry, Thomas

2017-01-01

In October 2015 the Department for Education (DfE) permitted a grammar school in Tonbridge, Kent, to open up an annexe in Sevenoaks, 10 miles away. Amidst claims that the annexe was essentially a new grammar school, the decision reignited an old debate about the value of academically-selective "grammar" schools in England. The intensity…

Pupils' Word Choices and the Teaching of Grammar

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wyse, Dominic

2006-01-01

The idea that formal grammar teaching leads to improvements in school pupils' writing has been a popular one. However, the robust and extensive evidence base shows that this is not the case. Despite this, policy initiatives have continued to suggest that grammar teaching does improve pupils' writing: the "Grammar for Writing" resource is…

SPECIFICATION AND UTILIZATION OF A TRANSFORMATIONAL GRAMMAR.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

LIEBERMAN, D.; AND OTHERS

SCIENTIFIC REPORT NO. 1 OF THIS PROJECT CONTAINS FOUR PARTS. THE FIRST, BY P. ROSENBAUM AND D. LOCHAK, PRESENTS AND EXPLAINS THE "IBM CORE GRAMMAR OF ENGLISH" AND GIVES A SET OF 66 DERIVATIONS CONSTRUCTED IN TERMS OF THE CORE GRAMMAR. PART II, "DESIGN OF A GRAMMAR TESTER" BY D. LIEBERMAN, SUMMARIZES THE DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS OF…

Impact of Consciousness-Raising Activities on Young English Language Learners' Grammar Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fatemipour, Hamidreza; Hemmati, Shiva

2015-01-01

Grammar Consciousness-Raising (GCR) is an approach to teaching of grammar which learners instead of being taught the given rules, experience language data. The data challenge them to rethink, restructure their existing mental grammar and construct an explicit rule to describe the grammatical feature which the data illustrate (Ellis, 2002). And…

Teaching the Topography of Gretel Ehrlich's Grammar.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gessell, Donna A.

When writing, few students have any concept that word placement affects the content of their writing. They seldom rework their papers at the sentence level in order to assure that their grammar reflects and enhances their content. Recognizing the relationship of grammar to meaning, composition researchers are reasserting the place of grammar in…

Something Old, Something New--An Eclectic Grammar for Learning.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

O'Donnell, Roy C.

Formal grammar study is important in schools above the elementary level because it can lead to improved understanding of the nature and functions of language. Although newer grammars, based on structural linguistics and transformational-generative grammar, have not met the needs of the schools, their potential should not be ignored with a return…

Foreign-Language Grammar Instruction via the Mother Tongue

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Paradowski, Michal B.

2007-01-01

The chapter reports the results of a controlled experiment which suggest that foreign-language grammar instruction that forges explicit connections with the grammar of the students' mother tongue aids learning, at least as far as students' application of discrete-point grammar rules is concerned. (Contains 2 figures and 3 notes.) [This document…

Language Practice with Multimedia Supported Web-Based Grammar Revision Material

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Baturay, Meltem Huri; Daloglu, Aysegul; Yildirim, Soner

2010-01-01

The aim of this study was to investigate the perceptions of elementary-level English language learners towards web-based, multimedia-annotated grammar learning. WEBGRAM, a system designed to provide supplementary web-based grammar revision material, uses audio-visual aids to enrich the contextual presentation of grammar and allows learners to…

Grammar Games

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brown, Kim

2004-01-01

The mere mention of a grammar lesson can set students' eyes rolling. The fun activities described in this article can turn those blank looks into smiles. Here, the author presents grammar games namely: (1) noun tennis; (2) the minister's cat; (3) kids take action; (4) what's my adverb?; (5) and then I saw...; and (6) grammar sing-along.

Implicit Learning of Recursive Context-Free Grammars

PubMed Central

Rohrmeier, Martin; Fu, Qiufang; Dienes, Zoltan

2012-01-01

Context-free grammars are fundamental for the description of linguistic syntax. However, most artificial grammar learning experiments have explored learning of simpler finite-state grammars, while studies exploring context-free grammars have not assessed awareness and implicitness. This paper explores the implicit learning of context-free grammars employing features of hierarchical organization, recursive embedding and long-distance dependencies. The grammars also featured the distinction between left- and right-branching structures, as well as between centre- and tail-embedding, both distinctions found in natural languages. People acquired unconscious knowledge of relations between grammatical classes even for dependencies over long distances, in ways that went beyond learning simpler relations (e.g. n-grams) between individual words. The structural distinctions drawn from linguistics also proved important as performance was greater for tail-embedding than centre-embedding structures. The results suggest the plausibility of implicit learning of complex context-free structures, which model some features of natural languages. They support the relevance of artificial grammar learning for probing mechanisms of language learning and challenge existing theories and computational models of implicit learning. PMID:23094021

Is Critical Thinking a Mediator Variable of Student Performance in School?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Walter, Christel; Walter, Paul

2018-01-01

The study explores the influences of critical thinking and interests on students' performance at school. The tested students attended German grammar schools ("Gymnasien"). Separate regression analyses showed the expected moderate positive influences of critical thinking and interests on school performance. But analyzed simultaneously,…

Une Experience d'enseignement programme de la grammaire francaise (An Experiment in Programed Instruction of French Grammar).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Girard, Jacques D.

An experiment is reported involving the teaching of the agreement of the past participle without an auxiliary verb, with "avoir" and with "etre," patterned after the studies of S. Roller in 1952-53 in this area. The initial experimentation is updated and involves the use of a Skinnerian model of programed instruction. The objectives, operational…

A System for Natural Language Sentence Generation.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Levison, Michael; Lessard, Gregory

1992-01-01

Describes the natural language computer program, "Vinci." Explains that using an attribute grammar formalism, Vinci can simulate components of several current linguistic theories. Considers the design of the system and its applications in linguistic modelling and second language acquisition research. Notes Vinci's uses in linguistics…

Teaching Old French Literature to Undergraduates.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stewart, Harry E.

As a prelude to graduate-level work for French majors, medieval studies are proposed for undergraduate students. Problems inherent in the establishment of the undergraduate program are identified with some suggested solutions. Concepts related to historical grammar, teaching materials, literature, and linguistics are developed. A logical course…

Development and Validation of a Diagnostic Grammar Test for Japanese Learners of English

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Koizumi, Rie; Sakai, Hideki; Ido, Takahiro; Ota, Hiroshi; Hayama, Megumi; Sato, Masatoshi; Nemoto, Akiko

2011-01-01

This article reports on the development and validation of the English Diagnostic Test of Grammar (EDiT Grammar) for Japanese learners of English. From among the many aspects of grammar, this test focuses on the knowledge of basic English noun phrases (NPs), especially their internal structures, because previous research has indicated the…

English Grammar in American Schools before 1850. Bulletin, 1921, No. 12

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lyman, Rollo LaVerne

1922-01-01

English grammar, as a formal subject, distinct from other branches of instruction in the vernacular, made but sporadic appearances in the American schools before 1775. After the Revolution its rise was extremely rapid. English grammar gained momentum as the hold of Latin grammar weakened, and by the end of the first quarter of the nineteenth…

Syntactic Functions in Functional Discourse Grammar and Role and Reference Grammar: An Evaluative Comparison

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Butler, Christopher S.

2012-01-01

The aim of this paper is to compare the treatment of syntactic functions, and more particularly those traditionally labelled as Subject and Object, in Functional Discourse Grammar and Role and Reference Grammar. Relevant aspects of the overall structure of the two theories are briefly described. The concept of alignment between levels of the…

The Association between Expressive Grammar Intervention and Social and Emergent Literacy Outcomes for Preschoolers with SLI

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Washington, Karla N.

2013-01-01

Purpose: To determine whether (a) expressive grammar intervention facilitated social and emergent literacy outcomes better than no intervention and (b) expressive grammar gains and/or initial expressive grammar level predicted social and emergent literacy outcomes. Method: This investigation was a follow-up to a recently published study exploring…

Learning English Grammar with a Corpus: Experimenting with Concordancing in a University Grammar Course

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vannestal, Maria Estling; Lindquist, Hans

2007-01-01

Corpora have been used for pedagogical purposes for more than two decades but empirical studies are relatively rare, particularly in the context of grammar teaching. The present study focuses on students' attitudes towards grammar and how these attitudes are affected by the introduction of concordancing. The principal aims of the project were to…

Grammar Making a Comeback in Composition Teaching.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McCleary, Bill

1995-01-01

This journal article focuses on the return of grammar in composition teaching. After about 2 decades of virtual banishment from the higher reaches of English teaching theory, grammar has returned as a subject of serious discussion. This is the result in part of a new assertiveness by a group of people who never lost interest in grammar as part of…

Direct versus Indirect Explicit Methods of Enhancing EFL Students' English Grammatical Competence: A Concept Checking-Based Consciousness-Raising Tasks Model

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dang, Trang Thi Doan; Nguyen, Huong Thu

2013-01-01

Two approaches to grammar instruction are often discussed in the ESL literature: direct explicit grammar instruction (DEGI) (deduction) and indirect explicit grammar instruction (IEGI) (induction). This study aims to explore the effects of indirect explicit grammar instruction on EFL learners' mastery of English tenses. Ninety-four…

The Philosophical Significance of Universal Grammar

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hinzen, Wolfram

2012-01-01

Throughout its long history, the project of a science of grammar has always been an inherently philosophical one, in which the study of grammar was taken to have special epistemological significance. I ask why 20th and 21st century inquiry into Universal Grammar (UG) has largely lost this dimension, a fact that I argue is partially responsible for…

A Comparative Study on Beliefs of Grammar Teaching between High School English Teachers and Students in China

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Deng, Fangfang; Lin, Yuewu

2016-01-01

Grammar is "a system of rules governing the conventional arrangement and relationship of words in a sentence" (Brown 1994) which can facilitate the acquisition of a foreign language and is conducive for cultivating comprehensive language competence. Most teachers regard grammar as a frame of English learning. The grammar teaching beliefs…

Interpersonal Functions of EFL Teachers' Evaluative Discourse

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lai, Junming

2010-01-01

As an important dimension of interpersonal function in SFL, appraisal has attracted a lot of attentions from the linguists home and abroad. This thesis is an attempt to analyze the interpersonal functions of EFL teachers' evaluative discourse with in the framework of Palladian Systemic-functional Grammar (SFG) and Martin's Appraisal theory. The…

Serbo-Croatian Word Order: A Logical Approach

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mihalicek, Vedrana

2012-01-01

This dissertation presents a formal theory of Serbo-Croatian grammar. The theory predicts acceptable form/meaning pairs for a substantial chunk of Serbo-Croatian. In particular, we analyze Serbo-Croatian declarative and interrogative main clauses, embedded clauses, a couple of different types of nominal modification, control and predication, as…

Pop, Rock, and Folk Music: An Overlooked Resource

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dubin, Fraida

1975-01-01

Proposes the use of pop, rock, and folk music as material far removed from the traditional and attuned to the learners' interests. Typical examples are analyzed with respect to phonology, grammar and semantics. A final category, "overall idea songs," linguistically unclassifiable, is found to be attractive and highly motivating. (IFS/WGA)

"Wh"-Questions in the English Language

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mowarin, Macaulay

2011-01-01

This paper analyzes "wh"-questions in the English Language based mainly on Chomsky's Minimalist Programme of transformational grammar as the theoretical model. The four main objectives of this paper are as follows: first, it undertakes a cross linguistic typological analysis of "wh"-questions and it then discusses the derivation of…

From Babies into Boys and Girls: The Acquisition of Gender Identity.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cahill, Spencer E.

Naturally occurring interactions recorded during participant observation in two preschools were analyzed in order to develop a distinctively sociological theory of gender identity acquisition. Attention was focused on the use of sex-categorical terms and the "grammar" of sex categorization practices underlying this usage. The analysis…

Linear grammar as a possible stepping-stone in the evolution of language.

PubMed

Jackendoff, Ray; Wittenberg, Eva

2017-02-01

We suggest that one way to approach the evolution of language is through reverse engineering: asking what components of the language faculty could have been useful in the absence of the full complement of components. We explore the possibilities offered by linear grammar, a form of language that lacks syntax and morphology altogether, and that structures its utterances through a direct mapping between semantics and phonology. A language with a linear grammar would have no syntactic categories or syntactic phrases, and therefore no syntactic recursion. It would also have no functional categories such as tense, agreement, and case inflection, and no derivational morphology. Such a language would still be capable of conveying certain semantic relations through word order-for instance by stipulating that agents should precede patients. However, many other semantic relations would have to be based on pragmatics and discourse context. We find evidence of linear grammar in a wide range of linguistic phenomena: pidgins, stages of late second language acquisition, home signs, village sign languages, language comprehension (even in fully syntactic languages), aphasia, and specific language impairment. We also find a full-blown language, Riau Indonesian, whose grammar is arguably close to a pure linear grammar. In addition, when subjects are asked to convey information through nonlinguistic gesture, their gestures make use of semantically based principles of linear ordering. Finally, some pockets of English grammar, notably compounds, can be characterized in terms of linear grammar. We conclude that linear grammar is a plausible evolutionary precursor of modern fully syntactic grammar, one that is still active in the human mind.

An Exploration of the Relationship between Vietnamese Students' Knowledge of L1 Grammar and Their English Grammar Proficiency

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tran, Tammie M.

2010-01-01

The problem. This research study explores an important issue in the field of TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) and second language acquisition (SLA). Its purpose is to examine the relationship between Vietnamese students' L1 grammar knowledge and their English grammar proficiency. Furthermore, it investigates the extent to…

The "Contextual Contact" in Grammar Microteachings in Teaching English as a Foreign Language: A Teacher Training Perspective

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sarigöz, Iskender Hakki

2015-01-01

The grammar microteachings carried out by trainees in teacher education is a critical issue due to the fact that the teaching of grammar has always been a controversial issue throughout the foreign language teaching (FLT) acculturation. There is always some negative reaction to isolated teaching of grammar in communicative language teaching…

Computer Experiments in Transformational Grammar; French I. Department of Computer and Communication Sciences Natural Language Studies No. 3.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Morin, Yves Ch.

Described in this paper is the implementation of Querido's French grammar ("Grammaire I, Description transformationelle d'un sous-ensemble du Francais," 1969) on the computer system for transformational grammar at the University of Michigan (Friedman 1969). The purpose was to demonstrate the ease of transcribing a relative formal grammar into the…

Grammar Correction in the Writing Centre: Expectations and Experiences of Monolingual and Multilingual Writers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Eckstein, Grant

2016-01-01

Although most writing centres maintain policies against providing grammar correction during writing tutorials, it is undeniable that students expect some level of grammar intervention there. Just how much students expect and receive is a matter of speculation. This article examines the grammar-correction issue by reporting on a survey of L1, L2,…

Indirect Positive Evidence in the Acquisition of a Subset Grammar

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schwartz, Misha; Goad, Heather

2017-01-01

This article proposes that second language learners can use indirect positive evidence (IPE) to acquire a phonological grammar that is a subset of their L1 grammar. IPE is evidence from errors in the learner's L1 made by native speakers of the learner's L2. It has been assumed that subset grammars may be acquired using direct or indirect negative…

On the Form of a Systemic Grammar

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McCord, Michael C.

1975-01-01

This paper concerns the theory of systemic grammar developed by Halliday, Hudson and others. It suggests modifications of Hudson's generative version, and the model presented resembles transformational grammar. (CHK)

Phonology without universal grammar

PubMed Central

Archangeli, Diana; Pulleyblank, Douglas

2015-01-01

The question of identifying the properties of language that are specific human linguistic abilities, i.e., Universal Grammar, lies at the center of linguistic research. This paper argues for a largely Emergent Grammar in phonology, taking as the starting point that memory, categorization, attention to frequency, and the creation of symbolic systems are all nonlinguistic characteristics of the human mind. The articulation patterns of American English rhotics illustrate categorization and systems; the distribution of vowels in Bantu vowel harmony uses frequencies of particular sequences to argue against Universal Grammar and in favor of Emergent Grammar; prefix allomorphy in Esimbi illustrates the Emergent symbolic system integrating phonological and morphological generalizations. The Esimbi case has been treated as an example of phonological opacity in a Universal Grammar account; the Emergent analysis resolves the pattern without opacity concerns. PMID:26388791

Dictionary Based Machine Translation from Kannada to Telugu

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sindhu, D. V.; Sagar, B. M.

2017-08-01

Machine Translation is a task of translating from one language to another language. For the languages with less linguistic resources like Kannada and Telugu Dictionary based approach is the best approach. This paper mainly focuses on Dictionary based machine translation for Kannada to Telugu. The proposed methodology uses dictionary for translating word by word without much correlation of semantics between them. The dictionary based machine translation process has the following sub process: Morph analyzer, dictionary, transliteration, transfer grammar and the morph generator. As a part of this work bilingual dictionary with 8000 entries is developed and the suffix mapping table at the tag level is built. This system is tested for the children stories. In near future this system can be further improved by defining transfer grammar rules.

Food for Thought: A Cooking Approach to Reading.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Coutu, Linda A.; And Others

Because third-grade students had difficulty following directions and completing sequencing activities, the Pascoag Grammar School (Rhode Island) developed an instructional program of cooking and cooking-related activities for implementation during the school year. This publication, which documents the instructional strategy, consists mainly of 15…

Latin Curriculum Standards. Revised.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Delaware State Dept. of Public Instruction, Dover.

Delaware's state standards for the Latin curriculum in the public schools are presented. An introductory section outlines the goals of the Latin program for reading, cultural awareness, grammar, writing, and oral language and briefly discusses the philosophy of and approaches to Latin instruction in elementary and middle schools. Three subsequent…

English as a Second Language: Current Issues.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lugton, Robert C., Ed.

This collection contains articles on teaching English to foreign students which range in subject matter from transformational-generative grammar to programed learning and which reflect a variety of viewpoints. The following articles are included: Leon A. Jakobovits, "Prolegomena to a Theory of Communicative Competence"; Renzo Titone, "A…

Basic Skills, Basic Writing, Basic Research.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Trimmer, Joseph F.

1987-01-01

Overviews basic writing instruction and research by briefly discussing the history of remediation, results of a survey of basic writing programs in U.S. colleges and universities, and interviews with developmental textbook editors at major publishing houses. Finds that basic writing instruction continues to focus on sentence grammar. (MM)

Group Grammar

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Adams, Karen

2015-01-01

In this article Karen Adams demonstrates how to incorporate group grammar techniques into a classroom activity. In the activity, students practice using the target grammar to do something they naturally enjoy: learning about each other.

Two-Dimensional Grammars And Their Applications To Artificial Intelligence

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lee, Edward T.

1987-05-01

During the past several years, the concepts and techniques of two-dimensional grammars1,2 have attracted growing attention as promising avenues of approach to problems in picture generation as well as in picture description3 representation, recognition, transformation and manipulation. Two-dimensional grammar techniques serve the purpose of exploiting the structure or underlying relationships in a picture. This approach attempts to describe a complex picture in terms of their components and their relative positions. This resembles the way a sentence is described in terms of its words and phrases, and the terms structural picture recognition, linguistic picture recognition, or syntactic picture recognition are often used. By using this approach, the problem of picture recognition becomes similar to that of phrase recognition in a language. However, describing pictures using a string grammar (one-dimensional grammar), the only relation between sub-pictures and/or primitives is the concatenation; that is each picture or primitive can be connected only at the left or right. This one-dimensional relation has not been very effective in describing two-dimensional pictures. A natural generaliza-tion is to use two-dimensional grammars. In this paper, two-dimensional grammars and their applications to artificial intelligence are presented. Picture grammars and two-dimensional grammars are introduced and illustrated by examples. In particular, two-dimensional grammars for generating all possible squares and all possible rhombuses are presented. The applications of two-dimensional grammars to solving region filling problems are discussed. An algorithm for region filling using two-dimensional grammars is presented together with illustrative examples. The advantages of using this algorithm in terms of computation time are also stated. A high-level description of a two-level picture generation system is proposed. The first level is the picture primitive generation using two-dimensional grammars. The second level is picture generation using either string description or entity-relationship (ER) diagram description. Illustrative examples are also given. The advantages of ER diagram description together with its comparison to string description are also presented. The results obtained in this paper may have useful applications in artificial intelligence, robotics, expert systems, picture processing, pattern recognition, knowledge engineering and pictorial database design. Furthermore, examples related to satellite surveillance and identifications are also included.

The Role of Grammar in the Writing Curriculum: A Review of the Literature

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Myhill, Debra; Watson, Annabel

2014-01-01

For most Anglophone countries, the history of grammar teaching over the past 50 years is one of contestation, debate and dissent: and 50 years on we are no closer to reaching a consensus about the role of grammar in the English/Language Arts curriculum. The debate has been described through the metaphor of battle and grammar wars (Kamler, 1995;…

Comment faire de la grammaire sans trahir le discours: Le cas des exercices grammaticaux (How to Teach Grammar without Betraying Discourse: The Case of Grammatical Exercises).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Calve, Pierre

1994-01-01

Discusses the various functions of grammar in second-language (SL) education, and examines the relationship between discourse and grammar in SL education. Two problems are then examined concerning the relationship between discourse and grammar within grammatical exercises, and with the help of concrete examples, suggestions are offered to better…

AGSuite: Software to conduct feature analysis of artificial grammar learning performance.

PubMed

Cook, Matthew T; Chubala, Chrissy M; Jamieson, Randall K

2017-10-01

To simplify the problem of studying how people learn natural language, researchers use the artificial grammar learning (AGL) task. In this task, participants study letter strings constructed according to the rules of an artificial grammar and subsequently attempt to discriminate grammatical from ungrammatical test strings. Although the data from these experiments are usually analyzed by comparing the mean discrimination performance between experimental conditions, this practice discards information about the individual items and participants that could otherwise help uncover the particular features of strings associated with grammaticality judgments. However, feature analysis is tedious to compute, often complicated, and ill-defined in the literature. Moreover, the data violate the assumption of independence underlying standard linear regression models, leading to Type I error inflation. To solve these problems, we present AGSuite, a free Shiny application for researchers studying AGL. The suite's intuitive Web-based user interface allows researchers to generate strings from a database of published grammars, compute feature measures (e.g., Levenshtein distance) for each letter string, and conduct a feature analysis on the strings using linear mixed effects (LME) analyses. The LME analysis solves the inflation of Type I errors that afflicts more common methods of repeated measures regression analysis. Finally, the software can generate a number of graphical representations of the data to support an accurate interpretation of results. We hope the ease and availability of these tools will encourage researchers to take full advantage of item-level variance in their datasets in the study of AGL. We moreover discuss the broader applicability of the tools for researchers looking to conduct feature analysis in any field.

A Computer String-Grammar of English.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sager, Naomi

This volume is the fourth in a series of detailed reports on a working computer program for the syntactic analysis of English sentences into their component strings. The report (1) records the considerations involved in various decisions among alternative grammatical formulations and presents the word-subclasses, the linguistic strings, etc., for…

An Evaluation of an Automated Approach to Concept-Based Grammar Instruction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lyddon, Paul A.

2012-01-01

Acquiring sufficient linguistic proficiency to perform competently in academic and professional contexts generally requires substantial study time beyond what most language programs can offer in the classroom. As such, teachers and students alike would benefit considerably from high quality self-access materials promoting independent learning out…

Lernen Wir Deutsch!: Part 2, German.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dade County Public Schools, Miami, FL.

Instructional objectives of the Dade County Public Schools Quinmester Program in German for use with "Lernen Wir Deutsch: Part 2" focus on development of basic skills through the use of short dialogues and structured exercises. The grammar of the course includes the study of nouns, pronouns, and verbs. Possessive determiners are…

STRUCTURE PLUS MEANING EQUALS LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

BELASCO, SIMON

TRUE FOREIGN LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY CAN BE ACHIEVED ONLY BY THE INTERNALIZATION OF THE ENTIRE GRAMMAR OF THE TARGET LANGUAGE PLUS THE DEVELOPMENT OF SKILL IN SEMANTIC INTERPRETATION. ADHERENCE TO EITHER OF THE METHODOLOGICAL ASSUMPTIONS THAT UNDERLIE TODAY'S AUDIOLINGUALLY-ORIENTED PROGRAMS WILL LEAD STUDENTS TO NOTHING MORE THAN A LEARNING PLATEAU.…

A Program for Improving Undergraduate Psychology Students' Basic Writing Skills

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fallahi, Carolyn R.; Wood, Rebecca M.; Austad, Carol Shaw; Fallahi, Hamid

2006-01-01

We examined the effects of in-class writing instruction, practice, peer review, and feedback on writing skills of undergraduates enrolled in a general psychology course. We rated writing for grammar, writing style, mechanics, and American Psychological Association referencing style. Significant differences emerged on the 4 writing skill domains (p…

A W-Grammar Description for ADA.

DTIC Science & Technology

1986-12-01

7 2. A Type 2 Grammar for Ada Identifiers . . . . . . .... 8 3. The Chomsky erarchy......... ...... 10 4. Some Hypernotions Used in...Ada Language Reference Manual. The Chomsky Hierarchy (4:9-20, 7:217-232). In the 1950s, Noam Chomsky defined five classes of phrase structure grammars ...describing valid language tokens. For example a Type 3 grammar for Ada identifiers is shown in Figure 1. Type 2 Chomsky Languages are the Context-free

The Effect of Target Language and Code-Switching on the Grammatical Performance and Perceptions of Elementary-Level College French Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Viakinnou-Brinson, Lucie; Herron, Carol; Cole, Steven P.; Haight, Carrie

2012-01-01

Grammar instruction is at the center of the target language (TL) and code-switching debate. Discussion revolves around whether grammar should be taught in the TL or using the TL and the native language (L1). This study investigated the effects of French-only grammar instruction and French/English grammar instruction on elementary-level students'…

Modelling dynamics with context-free grammars

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

García-Huerta, Juan-M.; Jiménez-Hernández, Hugo; Herrera-Navarro, Ana-M.; Hernández-Díaz, Teresa; Terol-Villalobos, Ivan

2014-03-01

This article presents a strategy to model the dynamics performed by vehicles in a freeway. The proposal consists on encode the movement as a set of finite states. A watershed-based segmentation is used to localize regions with high-probability of motion. Each state represents a proportion of a camera projection in a two-dimensional space, where each state is associated to a symbol, such that any combination of symbols is expressed as a language. Starting from a sequence of symbols through a linear algorithm a free-context grammar is inferred. This grammar represents a hierarchical view of common sequences observed into the scene. Most probable grammar rules express common rules associated to normal movement behavior. Less probable rules express themselves a way to quantify non-common behaviors and they might need more attention. Finally, all sequences of symbols that does not match with the grammar rules, may express itself uncommon behaviors (abnormal). The grammar inference is built with several sequences of images taken from a freeway. Testing process uses the sequence of symbols emitted by the scenario, matching the grammar rules with common freeway behaviors. The process of detect abnormal/normal behaviors is managed as the task of verify if any word generated by the scenario is recognized by the grammar.

Flexible processing and the design of grammar.

PubMed

Sag, Ivan A; Wasow, Thomas

2015-02-01

We explore the consequences of letting the incremental and integrative nature of language processing inform the design of competence grammar. What emerges is a view of grammar as a system of local monotonic constraints that provide a direct characterization of the signs (the form-meaning correspondences) of a given language. This "sign-based" conception of grammar has provided precise solutions to the key problems long thought to motivate movement-based analyses, has supported three decades of computational research developing large-scale grammar implementations, and is now beginning to play a role in computational psycholinguistics research that explores the use of underspecification in the incremental computation of partial meanings.

Ideologies in the Thematic Slogans of the 1984-2012 Olympic Games

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cuihua, Wu; Lingling, Liu

2014-01-01

This paper spotlights the twelve slogans of the Olympic Games in order to critically analyze the ideologies underlying the discourse. By taking the principles of critical discourse analysis (CDA) and Halliday's (1994) systemic-functional grammar (SFG) as analytical tools, the paper endeavours to reveal the ideology that predominates in the ruling…

Shell Nouns as Cohesive Devices in Published and ESL Student Writing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Aktas, Rahime Nur; Cortes, Viviana

2008-01-01

This paper analyzes the use of a special type of unspecific noun, called "shell nouns" [Hunston, S., & Francis, G. (1999). "Pattern grammar". Amsterdam: Benjamins; Schmid, H. (2000). "English abstract nouns as conceptual shells: From corpus to cognition". Berlin: Walter de Gruyter], which are frequently used as cohesive devices, in the written…

Modes of Meaning in High School Science. CELA Research Report.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Young, Richard F.; Nguyen, Hanh Thi

Using the framework of systematic functional grammar, this study compares two modes of presenting the same scientific topic: in a physics textbook and in interactive teacher talk. Three aspects of scientific meaning making are analyzed: representations of physical and mental reality, lexical packaging, and the rhetorical structure of reasoning.…

Keyword Extraction from Arabic Legal Texts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rammal, Mahmoud; Bahsoun, Zeinab; Al Achkar Jabbour, Mona

2015-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to apply local grammar (LG) to develop an indexing system which automatically extracts keywords from titles of Lebanese official journals. Design/methodology/approach: To build LG for our system, the first word that plays the determinant role in understanding the meaning of a title is analyzed and grouped as…

Functional Grammar in the Context of Linguistic Applications in Turkish Language Teaching

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Epcacan, Cahit

2013-01-01

In the last century, language researches adopted the scientific method and linguistics became an autonomous discipline. Linguistics is a framework concept that analyzes all languages in the world in various contexts according to its own rules and draws conclusions using the systematic approach. Functional linguistics is a linguistic trend that…

From SOV to SVO: The Grammar of Interlanguage Word Order.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Camacho, Jose

1999-01-01

Analyzes the grammatical outcome of the conflict speakers of a head-final first language (L1) (Southern Quechua) face when learning a head-initial target (Standard Spanish) language in a naturalistic setting. Proposes that interlanguage sentential word orders reflect a transfer of two independent parameters from the L1: the possibility of having…

The Minimalist Syntax of Control in Greek

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kapetangianni, Konstantia

2010-01-01

This dissertation investigates Control phenomena in three distinct domains of the grammar of Modem Greek (subjunctive complements, "V-ondas" adjuncts and ke-complements) and proposes a unifying syntactic account of Control by appealing to the tense properties of these domains. I argue that Control in Greek is best analyzed as an instance of…

A grammar-based semantic similarity algorithm for natural language sentences.

PubMed

Lee, Ming Che; Chang, Jia Wei; Hsieh, Tung Cheng

2014-01-01

This paper presents a grammar and semantic corpus based similarity algorithm for natural language sentences. Natural language, in opposition to "artificial language", such as computer programming languages, is the language used by the general public for daily communication. Traditional information retrieval approaches, such as vector models, LSA, HAL, or even the ontology-based approaches that extend to include concept similarity comparison instead of cooccurrence terms/words, may not always determine the perfect matching while there is no obvious relation or concept overlap between two natural language sentences. This paper proposes a sentence similarity algorithm that takes advantage of corpus-based ontology and grammatical rules to overcome the addressed problems. Experiments on two famous benchmarks demonstrate that the proposed algorithm has a significant performance improvement in sentences/short-texts with arbitrary syntax and structure.

Modeling Structure-Function Relationships in Synthetic DNA Sequences using Attribute Grammars

PubMed Central

Cai, Yizhi; Lux, Matthew W.; Adam, Laura; Peccoud, Jean

2009-01-01

Recognizing that certain biological functions can be associated with specific DNA sequences has led various fields of biology to adopt the notion of the genetic part. This concept provides a finer level of granularity than the traditional notion of the gene. However, a method of formally relating how a set of parts relates to a function has not yet emerged. Synthetic biology both demands such a formalism and provides an ideal setting for testing hypotheses about relationships between DNA sequences and phenotypes beyond the gene-centric methods used in genetics. Attribute grammars are used in computer science to translate the text of a program source code into the computational operations it represents. By associating attributes with parts, modifying the value of these attributes using rules that describe the structure of DNA sequences, and using a multi-pass compilation process, it is possible to translate DNA sequences into molecular interaction network models. These capabilities are illustrated by simple example grammars expressing how gene expression rates are dependent upon single or multiple parts. The translation process is validated by systematically generating, translating, and simulating the phenotype of all the sequences in the design space generated by a small library of genetic parts. Attribute grammars represent a flexible framework connecting parts with models of biological function. They will be instrumental for building mathematical models of libraries of genetic constructs synthesized to characterize the function of genetic parts. This formalism is also expected to provide a solid foundation for the development of computer assisted design applications for synthetic biology. PMID:19816554

Intelligent behavior generator for autonomous mobile robots using planning-based AI decision making and supervisory control logic

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shah, Hitesh K.; Bahl, Vikas; Martin, Jason; Flann, Nicholas S.; Moore, Kevin L.

2002-07-01

In earlier research the Center for Self-Organizing and Intelligent Systems (CSOIS) at Utah State University (USU) have been funded by the US Army Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command's (TACOM) Intelligent Mobility Program to develop and demonstrate enhanced mobility concepts for unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs). One among the several out growths of this work has been the development of a grammar-based approach to intelligent behavior generation for commanding autonomous robotic vehicles. In this paper we describe the use of this grammar for enabling autonomous behaviors. A supervisory task controller (STC) sequences high-level action commands (taken from the grammar) to be executed by the robot. It takes as input a set of goals and a partial (static) map of the environment and produces, from the grammar, a flexible script (or sequence) of the high-level commands that are to be executed by the robot. The sequence is derived by a planning function that uses a graph-based heuristic search (A* -algorithm). Each action command has specific exit conditions that are evaluated by the STC following each task completion or interruption (in the case of disturbances or new operator requests). Depending on the system's state at task completion or interruption (including updated environmental and robot sensor information), the STC invokes a reactive response. This can include sequencing the pending tasks or initiating a re-planning event, if necessary. Though applicable to a wide variety of autonomous robots, an application of this approach is demonstrated via simulations of ODIS, an omni-directional inspection system developed for security applications.

Quelques problemes poses a la grammaire casuelle (Some Problems Regarding Case Grammar)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fillmore, Charles J.

1975-01-01

Discusses problems related to case grammar theory, including: the organizations of a case grammar; determination of semantic roles; definition and hierarchy of cases; cause-effect relations; and formalization and notation. (Text is in French.) (AM)

An Overview of the Nigel Text Generation Grammar.

DTIC Science & Technology

1983-04-01

34 76b, Hudson 76, Halliday 81, de Joia 80, Fawcett 80].3 1.2. Design Goals for the Grammar Three kinds of goals have guided the work of creating Nigel...Davey 79] Davey, A., Discourse Production, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1979. [ de Joia 80] de Joia , A., and A. Stenton, Terms in Systemic...1 1.1. The Text Generation Task as a Stimulus for Grammar Design .........................1I -1.2. Design Goals for the Grammar

Input-Based Approaches to Teaching Grammar: A Review of Classroom-Oriented Research.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ellis, Rod

1999-01-01

Examines the theoretical rationales (universal grammar, information-processing theories, skill-learning theories) for input-based grammar teaching and reviews classroom-oriented research (i.e., enriched-input studies, input-processing studies) that has integrated this option. (Author/VWL)

Quel Eclectisme en grammaire? (What Eclecticism in Grammar?)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Beacco, Jean-Claude

1987-01-01

The teaching of grammar provides more options for teacher strategies than almost any other area of language teaching, but because of the nature of grammar and classroom language instruction, using a variety of approaches is a more appropriate strategy. (MSE)

The Influence of Texting Language on Grammar and Executive Functions in Primary School Children.

PubMed

van Dijk, Chantal N; van Witteloostuijn, Merel; Vasić, Nada; Avrutin, Sergey; Blom, Elma

2016-01-01

When sending text messages on their mobile phone to friends, children often use a special type of register, which is called textese. This register allows the omission of words and the use of textisms: instances of non-standard written language such as 4ever (forever). Previous studies have shown that textese has a positive effect on children's literacy abilities. In addition, it is possible that children's grammar system is affected by textese as well, as grammar rules are often transgressed in this register. Therefore, the main aim of this study was to investigate whether the use of textese influences children's grammar performance, and whether this effect is specific to grammar or language in general. Additionally, studies have not yet investigated the influence of textese on children's cognitive abilities. Consequently, the secondary aim of this study was to find out whether textese affects children's executive functions. To investigate this, 55 children between 10 and 13 years old were tested on a receptive vocabulary and grammar performance (sentence repetition) task and various tasks measuring executive functioning. In addition, text messages were elicited and the number of omissions and textisms in children's messages were calculated. Regression analyses showed that omissions were a significant predictor of children's grammar performance after various other variables were controlled for: the more words children omitted in their text messages, the better their performance on the grammar task. Although textisms correlated (marginally) significantly with vocabulary, grammar and selective attention scores and omissions marginally significantly with vocabulary scores, no other significant effects were obtained for measures of textese in the regression analyses: neither for the language outcomes, nor for the executive function tasks. Hence, our results show that textese is positively related to children's grammar performance. On the other hand, use of textese does not affect--positively nor negatively--children's executive functions.

The Influence of Texting Language on Grammar and Executive Functions in Primary School Children

PubMed Central

van Dijk, Chantal N.; van Witteloostuijn, Merel; Vasić, Nada; Avrutin, Sergey; Blom, Elma

2016-01-01

When sending text messages on their mobile phone to friends, children often use a special type of register, which is called textese. This register allows the omission of words and the use of textisms: instances of non-standard written language such as 4ever (forever). Previous studies have shown that textese has a positive effect on children’s literacy abilities. In addition, it is possible that children’s grammar system is affected by textese as well, as grammar rules are often transgressed in this register. Therefore, the main aim of this study was to investigate whether the use of textese influences children’s grammar performance, and whether this effect is specific to grammar or language in general. Additionally, studies have not yet investigated the influence of textese on children’s cognitive abilities. Consequently, the secondary aim of this study was to find out whether textese affects children’s executive functions. To investigate this, 55 children between 10 and 13 years old were tested on a receptive vocabulary and grammar performance (sentence repetition) task and various tasks measuring executive functioning. In addition, text messages were elicited and the number of omissions and textisms in children’s messages were calculated. Regression analyses showed that omissions were a significant predictor of children’s grammar performance after various other variables were controlled for: the more words children omitted in their text messages, the better their performance on the grammar task. Although textisms correlated (marginally) significantly with vocabulary, grammar and selective attention scores and omissions marginally significantly with vocabulary scores, no other significant effects were obtained for measures of textese in the regression analyses: neither for the language outcomes, nor for the executive function tasks. Hence, our results show that textese is positively related to children’s grammar performance. On the other hand, use of textese does not affect—positively nor negatively—children’s executive functions. PMID:27031708

Multiple Grammars and the Logic of Learnability in Second Language Acquisition.

PubMed

Roeper, Tom W

2016-01-01

The core notion of modern Universal Grammar is that language ability requires abstract representation in terms of hierarchy, movement operations, abstract features on words, and fixed mapping to meaning. These mental structures are a step toward integrating representational knowledge of all kinds into a larger model of cognitive psychology. Examining first and second language at once provides clues as to how abstractly we should represent this knowledge. The abstract nature of grammar allows both the formulation of many grammars and the possibility that a rule of one grammar could apply to another grammar. We argue that every language contains Multiple Grammars which may reflect different language families. We develop numerous examples of how the same abstract rules can apply in various languages and develop a theory of how language modules (case-marking, topicalization, and quantification) interact to predict L2 acquisition paths. In particular we show in depth how Germanic Verb-second operations, based on Verb-final structure, can apply in English. The argument is built around how and where V2 from German can apply in English, seeking to explain the crucial contrast: "nothing" yelled out Bill/(*)"nothing" yelled Bill out in terms of the necessary abstractness of the V2 rule.

Applying Semantic-based Probabilistic Context-Free Grammar to Medical Language Processing – A Preliminary Study on Parsing Medication Sentences

PubMed Central

Xu, Hua; AbdelRahman, Samir; Lu, Yanxin; Denny, Joshua C.; Doan, Son

2011-01-01

Semantic-based sublanguage grammars have been shown to be an efficient method for medical language processing. However, given the complexity of the medical domain, parsers using such grammars inevitably encounter ambiguous sentences, which could be interpreted by different groups of production rules and consequently result in two or more parse trees. One possible solution, which has not been extensively explored previously, is to augment productions in medical sublanguage grammars with probabilities to resolve the ambiguity. In this study, we associated probabilities with production rules in a semantic-based grammar for medication findings and evaluated its performance on reducing parsing ambiguity. Using the existing data set from 2009 i2b2 NLP (Natural Language Processing) challenge for medication extraction, we developed a semantic-based CFG (Context Free Grammar) for parsing medication sentences and manually created a Treebank of 4,564 medication sentences from discharge summaries. Using the Treebank, we derived a semantic-based PCFG (probabilistic Context Free Grammar) for parsing medication sentences. Our evaluation using a 10-fold cross validation showed that the PCFG parser dramatically improved parsing performance when compared to the CFG parser. PMID:21856440

A random forest learning assisted "divide and conquer" approach for peptide conformation search.

PubMed

Chen, Xin; Yang, Bing; Lin, Zijing

2018-06-11

Computational determination of peptide conformations is challenging as it is a problem of finding minima in a high-dimensional space. The "divide and conquer" approach is promising for reliably reducing the search space size. A random forest learning model is proposed here to expand the scope of applicability of the "divide and conquer" approach. A random forest classification algorithm is used to characterize the distributions of the backbone φ-ψ units ("words"). A random forest supervised learning model is developed to analyze the combinations of the φ-ψ units ("grammar"). It is found that amino acid residues may be grouped as equivalent "words", while the φ-ψ combinations in low-energy peptide conformations follow a distinct "grammar". The finding of equivalent words empowers the "divide and conquer" method with the flexibility of fragment substitution. The learnt grammar is used to improve the efficiency of the "divide and conquer" method by removing unfavorable φ-ψ combinations without the need of dedicated human effort. The machine learning assisted search method is illustrated by efficiently searching the conformations of GGG/AAA/GGGG/AAAA/GGGGG through assembling the structures of GFG/GFGG. Moreover, the computational cost of the new method is shown to increase rather slowly with the peptide length.

Conserved and species-specific transcription factor co-binding patterns drive divergent gene regulation in human and mouse

PubMed Central

Diehl, Adam G

2018-01-01

Abstract The mouse is widely used as system to study human genetic mechanisms. However, extensive rewiring of transcriptional regulatory networks often confounds translation of findings between human and mouse. Site-specific gain and loss of individual transcription factor binding sites (TFBS) has caused functional divergence of orthologous regulatory loci, and so we must look beyond this positional conservation to understand common themes of regulatory control. Fortunately, transcription factor co-binding patterns shared across species often perform conserved regulatory functions. These can be compared to ‘regulatory sentences’ that retain the same meanings regardless of sequence and species context. By analyzing TFBS co-occupancy patterns observed in four human and mouse cell types, we learned a regulatory grammar: the rules by which TFBS are combined into meaningful regulatory sentences. Different parts of this grammar associate with specific sets of functional annotations regardless of sequence conservation and predict functional signatures more accurately than positional conservation. We further show that both species-specific and conserved portions of this grammar are involved in gene expression divergence and human disease risk. These findings expand our understanding of transcriptional regulatory mechanisms, suggesting that phenotypic divergence and disease risk are driven by a complex interplay between deeply conserved and species-specific transcriptional regulatory pathways. PMID:29361190

Expanding the Notion of Competence: Some Implications for Elementary Speech Programs.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hopper, Robert

Applications of research in psycholinguistics, particularly Noam Chomsky's research, have suggested some drastic innovations in the practices of both the classroom teacher and the child development researcher. For example, more emphasis is needed upon asking what a speaker knows about the grammar of the language with less concern about how…

Persian Basic Course: Volume III, Lessons 29-38.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Defense Language Inst., Monterey, CA.

The third of 10 volumes of a basic course in Persian is presented that is designed for use in the Defense Language Institute's intensive programs for native English speakers. The central feature of the daily lesson is the structured dialogue, which systematically incorporates a number of grammatical features. Grammar is not explained through…

Efficacy of an ICALL Tutoring System and Process-Oriented Corrective Feedback

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Choi, Inn-Chull

2016-01-01

A Web-based form-focused intelligent computer-assisted language learning (ICALL) tutoring system equipped with a process-oriented corrective feedback function was developed to investigate the extent to which such a program may serve as a viable method of teaching grammar to Korean secondary and elementary students. The present study was also…

Rage against the Machine: Evaluation Metrics in the 21st Century

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yang, Charles

2017-01-01

I review the classic literature in generative grammar and Marr's three-level program for cognitive science to defend the Evaluation Metric as a psychological theory of language learning. Focusing on well-established facts of language variation, change, and use, I argue that optimal statistical principles embodied in Bayesian inference models are…

"'Puro' Spelling and Grammar": Conceptualizations of Language and the Marginalization of Emergent Bilinguals

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Poza, Luis E.

2016-01-01

Conceptualizations of language and language learning underlie language pedagogies (Valdés, Poza, & Brooks, 2015). The present work relies on ethnographic observation and interviews in a dual immersion (DI) bilingual program, as well as a content analysis of the research foundation of the English Language Development intervention curriculum, to…

Process Writing and the Development of Grammatical Competence

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Artunduaga Cuéllar, Marco Tulio

2013-01-01

This article presents the results of an action research study whose purpose was to apply alternatives for the development of grammatical competence in a group of third semester students of a Morphosyntax I course in an English language teaching undergraduate program at a Colombian public university. Given the fact that the teaching of grammar has…

Sustained Silent Reading in University Courses in EFL for Academic Purposes.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ducy-Perez, Ellen

This paper summarizes a study conducted to determine whether sustained silent reading (SSR) can contribute to improvement in grammar and reading comprehension in university academic English as a foreign language (EFL) courses. A total of 186 beginning and intermediate students enrolled in the English for Academic Purposes program at the…

Empowering Catholic Communicators: A Trivium Heuristic for First-Year Writing Courses

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hurley, Gavin F.

2017-01-01

First-year writing courses at Catholic colleges and universities can provide students the communicative tools to intellectually engage with Catholic doctrines and beliefs in the public sphere. However, writing programs can neglect to balance grammar, logic, and rhetoric. This article provides a practical Catholic first-year writing course design…

Writing toward a Scientific Identity: Shifting from Prescriptive to Reflective Writing in Undergraduate Biology

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Otfinowski, Rafael; Silva-Opps, Marina

2015-01-01

Analytical writing enhances retention of science learning and is integral to student-centered classrooms. Despite this, scientific writing in undergraduate programs is often presented as a series of sentence-level conventions of grammar, syntax, and citation formats, reinforcing students' perceptions of its highly prescriptive nature. The authors…

Kreol: A Language Training Program for Peace Corps-Seychelles.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mancienne, Roger

A course in French-derived Kreol is designed for language learning among Peace Corps volunteers assigned to the Seychelles. The materials consist of 36 lessons on topics of daily communication needs. Lessons contain a story, dialogue, and/or list of expressions, exercises, and vocabulary and grammar notes and translations in the margin. Some…

Generative Semantics

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bagha, Karim Nazari

2011-01-01

Generative semantics is (or perhaps was) a research program within linguistics, initiated by the work of George Lakoff, John R. Ross, Paul Postal and later McCawley. The approach developed out of transformational generative grammar in the mid 1960s, but stood largely in opposition to work by Noam Chomsky and his students. The nature and genesis of…

On the Equivalence of Formal Grammars and Machines.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lund, Bruce

1991-01-01

Explores concepts of formal language and automata theory underlying computational linguistics. A computational formalism is described known as a "logic grammar," with which computational systems process linguistic data, with examples in declarative and procedural semantics and definite clause grammars. (13 references) (CB)

Faut-il Mettre "Un Bonnet Rouge" a la grammaire francaise (Must We Put a "Bonnet Rouge" on French Grammar?).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jaussaud, Francoise

1989-01-01

An experimental approach to French grammar instruction at the American School of Madrid, based on a restructuring of the grammar around the verb, provides a promising new perspective for language pedagogy. (MSE)

Comment and Response.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

College English, 1985

1985-01-01

Critics comment on three earlier "College English" articles: Mike Rose's "The Language of Exclusion: Writing Instruction at the University," Elizabeth A. Nist's "Tattle's Well's Faire: English Women Authors of the Sixteenth Century," and Patrick Hartwell's "Grammar, Grammars, and the Teaching of Grammar." Contains responses from Mike Rose and…

Paperback Grammar for Handbook Haters.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lambert, Dorothy

1967-01-01

Students will respond better to grammar instruction if the traditional heavy handbooks are replaced with light-weight paperbacks, each full of practical suggestions and clear examples. Several inexpensive paperbacks are available for instruction in grammar and usage, spelling, vocabulary, reading comprehension, and writing. Unlike the conventional…

The Differences between Spoken and Written Grammar in English, in Comparison with Vietnamese (Las Diferencias entre la Gramática Oral y Escrita del Idioma Inglés en Comparación con el Idioma Vietnamita)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thanh, Nguyen Cao

2015-01-01

The fundamental point of this paper is to describe and evaluate some differences between spoken and written grammar in English, and compare some of the points with Vietnamese. This paper illustrates that spoken grammar is less rigid than written grammar. Moreover, it highlights the distinction between speaking and writing in terms of subordination…

Preliminary Analysis of a Breadth-First Parsing Algorithm: Theoretical and Experimental Results.

DTIC Science & Technology

1981-06-01

present discussion we will assume that phrases have one or two daughters, or more formally, that the grammar is in Chomsky Normal Form [1].) This... grammar point of view, these pairs contrast Chomsky Normal Form [1] with Categorial Grammars [2], and from a representational point of view, these pairs...chart(i, k) * chart(k, j) bottom-up ( Chomsky Normal Form) (9) chart(k, j) = chart(i, ) top-down (Categorial Grammars )chart(i, k) Earley’s Algorithm [8

The relation between receptive grammar and procedural, declarative, and working memory in specific language impairment.

PubMed

Conti-Ramsden, Gina; Ullman, Michael T; Lum, Jarrad A G

2015-01-01

What memory systems underlie grammar in children, and do these differ between typically developing (TD) children and children with specific language impairment (SLI)? Whilst there is substantial evidence linking certain memory deficits to the language problems in children with SLI, few studies have investigated multiple memory systems simultaneously, examining not only possible memory deficits but also memory abilities that may play a compensatory role. This study examined the extent to which procedural, declarative, and working memory abilities predict receptive grammar in 45 primary school aged children with SLI (30 males, 15 females) and 46 TD children (30 males, 16 females), both on average 9;10 years of age. Regression analyses probed measures of all three memory systems simultaneously as potential predictors of receptive grammar. The model was significant, explaining 51.6% of the variance. There was a significant main effect of learning in procedural memory and a significant group × procedural learning interaction. Further investigation of the interaction revealed that procedural learning predicted grammar in TD but not in children with SLI. Indeed, procedural learning was the only predictor of grammar in TD. In contrast, only learning in declarative memory significantly predicted grammar in SLI. Thus, different memory systems are associated with receptive grammar abilities in children with SLI and their TD peers. This study is, to our knowledge, the first to demonstrate a significant group by memory system interaction in predicting grammar in children with SLI and their TD peers. In line with Ullman's Declarative/Procedural model of language and procedural deficit hypothesis of SLI, variability in understanding sentences of varying grammatical complexity appears to be associated with variability in procedural memory abilities in TD children, but with declarative memory, as an apparent compensatory mechanism, in children with SLI.

Deriving a probabilistic syntacto-semantic grammar for biomedicine based on domain-specific terminologies

PubMed Central

Fan, Jung-Wei; Friedman, Carol

2011-01-01

Biomedical natural language processing (BioNLP) is a useful technique that unlocks valuable information stored in textual data for practice and/or research. Syntactic parsing is a critical component of BioNLP applications that rely on correctly determining the sentence and phrase structure of free text. In addition to dealing with the vast amount of domain-specific terms, a robust biomedical parser needs to model the semantic grammar to obtain viable syntactic structures. With either a rule-based or corpus-based approach, the grammar engineering process requires substantial time and knowledge from experts, and does not always yield a semantically transferable grammar. To reduce the human effort and to promote semantic transferability, we propose an automated method for deriving a probabilistic grammar based on a training corpus consisting of concept strings and semantic classes from the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS), a comprehensive terminology resource widely used by the community. The grammar is designed to specify noun phrases only due to the nominal nature of the majority of biomedical terminological concepts. Evaluated on manually parsed clinical notes, the derived grammar achieved a recall of 0.644, precision of 0.737, and average cross-bracketing of 0.61, which demonstrated better performance than a control grammar with the semantic information removed. Error analysis revealed shortcomings that could be addressed to improve performance. The results indicated the feasibility of an approach which automatically incorporates terminology semantics in the building of an operational grammar. Although the current performance of the unsupervised solution does not adequately replace manual engineering, we believe once the performance issues are addressed, it could serve as an aide in a semi-supervised solution. PMID:21549857

TechWriter: An Evolving System for Writing Assistance for Advanced Learners of English

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Napolitano, Diane M.; Stent, Amanda

2009-01-01

Writing assistance systems, from simple spelling checkers to more complex grammar and readability analyzers, can be helpful aids to nonnative writers of English. However, many writing assistance systems have two disadvantages. First, they are not designed to encourage skills learning and independence in their users; instead, users may begin to use…

Grammar as a Joint Achievement: Co-Constructions in L2 Interactions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Family, Neiloufar; Durus, Natalia; Ziegler, Gudrun

2015-01-01

In this study, we present and analyze co-constructions from L2 English data collected at the European School in Luxembourg. Co-constructions are morpho-syntactic structures split across two speakers, in which a second speaker completes a grammatical structure initiated by the first speaker in conversation. The corpus features multilingual 13-14…

The Challenges of Teaching EFL Listening in Iraqi (Kurdistan Region) Universities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Avci, Rauf; Doghonadze, Natela

2017-01-01

The article is dedicated to the issue of teaching EFL listening in Kurdistan region of Iraq. The important role of listening skills in a FL learning is presented, and the difficulties of listening are analyzed, including language (vocabulary, grammar) and psychological (low motivation and self-confidence as well as a high level of listening…

Parallel firing strategy on Petri nets: A review

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mavlankulov, Gairatzhan; Turaev, Sherzod; Zhumabaeva, Laula; Zhukabayeva, Tamara

2015-05-01

In this paper we review the recent results related on Petri net controlled grammars and the close related topics. Though the theme of regulated grammars is one of the classic topics in formal language theory, a Petri net controlled grammar is still interesting subject for the investigation for many reasons. This type of grammars can successfully be used in modeling new problems emerging in manufacturing systems, systems biology and other areas. Moreover, the graphically illustrability, the ability to represent both a grammar and its control in one structure, and the possibility to unify different regulated rewritings make this formalization attractive for the study. We also summarize the obtained results and propose a new conception such as parallel firing strategy on Petri Nets.

The New English Grammar.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thompson, Charles Lamar

This "new English grammar" textbook blends four systems of grammar: (1) the traditional, providing most of the terminology; (2) the historical, providing the historical background; (3) the structural, providing the sentence patterns; and (4) the transformational, providing the variations of the sentence patterns. The author points out the…

Esquisse d'une grammaire de l'imaginaire (Sketch of a Grammar of the Fanciful).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ruck, Heribert

1986-01-01

Proposes an approach to teaching grammar that calls on the student's imagination and frees the learning process from classroom routine. The technique uses examples of specific constructions in French poetry to illustrate principles of grammar and discourse. (MSE)

A Grammar-Based Semantic Similarity Algorithm for Natural Language Sentences

PubMed Central

Chang, Jia Wei; Hsieh, Tung Cheng

2014-01-01

This paper presents a grammar and semantic corpus based similarity algorithm for natural language sentences. Natural language, in opposition to “artificial language”, such as computer programming languages, is the language used by the general public for daily communication. Traditional information retrieval approaches, such as vector models, LSA, HAL, or even the ontology-based approaches that extend to include concept similarity comparison instead of cooccurrence terms/words, may not always determine the perfect matching while there is no obvious relation or concept overlap between two natural language sentences. This paper proposes a sentence similarity algorithm that takes advantage of corpus-based ontology and grammatical rules to overcome the addressed problems. Experiments on two famous benchmarks demonstrate that the proposed algorithm has a significant performance improvement in sentences/short-texts with arbitrary syntax and structure. PMID:24982952

Conceptual Memory: A Theory and Computer Program for Processing the Meaning Content of Natural Language Utterances

DTIC Science & Technology

1974-07-01

iiWU -immmemmmmm This document was generated by the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory’s document compiler, "PUB" and reproducec’ on a...for more sophisticated artificial (programming) languages. The new issues became those of how to represent a grammar as precise syntactic structures...challenge lies in discovering - either by synthesis of an artificial system, or by analysis of a natural one - the underlying logical (a. opposed to

Generalized Categorial Grammar for Unbounded Dependencies Recovery

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nguyen, Luan Viet

2014-01-01

Accurate recovery of predicate-argument dependencies is vital for interpretation tasks like information extraction and question answering, and unbounded dependencies may account for a significant portion of the dependencies in any given text. This thesis describes a Generalized Categorial Grammar (GCG) which, like other categorial grammars,…

Commitment-Based Learning of Hidden Linguistic Structures

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Akers, Crystal Gayle

2012-01-01

Learners must simultaneously learn a grammar and a lexicon from observed forms, yet some structures that the grammar and lexicon reference are unobservable in the acoustic signal. Moreover, these "hidden" structures interact: the grammar maps an underlying form to a particular interpretation. Learning one structure depends on learning…

A Sociolinguistic Approach to Teaching Spanish Grammatical Structures

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shin, Naomi L.; Hudgens Henderson, Mary

2017-01-01

Advanced grammar courses often present standardized grammar rules to students without considering sociolinguistic variation. As a result, many native/heritage students feel that they speak "incorrectly," and many second language learners do not get an accurate picture of the target language's real-world grammar. This article describes…

A Positive Approach to Good Grammar

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kuehner, Alison V.

2016-01-01

Correct grammar is important for precise, accurate, academic prose, but the traditional skills-based approach to teaching grammar is not effective if the goal is good writing. The sentence-combining approach shows promise. However, sentence modeling is more likely to produce strong writing and enhance reading comprehension. Through sentence…

Second Language Acquisition and Universal Grammar.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

White, Lydia

1990-01-01

Discusses the motivation for Universal Grammar (UG), as assumed in the principles and parameters framework of generative grammar (Chomsky, 1981), focusing on the logical problem of first-language acquisition and the potential role of UG in second-language acquisition. Recent experimental research regarding the second-language status of the…

Exploring Dyslexics' Phonological Deficit II: Phonological Grammar

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Szenkovits, Gayaneh; Darma, Quynliaan; Darcy, Isabelle; Ramus, Franck

2016-01-01

Language learners have to acquire the phonological grammar of their native language, and different levels of representations on which the grammar operates. Developmental dyslexia is associated with a phonological deficit, which is commonly assumed to stem from degraded phonological representations. The present study investigates one aspect of the…

Inclusive Education Practice in Southwestern Nigeria: A Situational Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Adeniyi, Samuel Olufemi; Adeyemi, Akinkunmi Oluwadamilare

2015-01-01

This study presented situational analysis of inclusive educational practice in southwestern Nigeria. The study employed descriptive survey research design. Samples of 131 teachers, 51 parents and 51 head teachers/principals were purposively selected from State Grammar School, Ipakodo Junior Grammar School, Methodist Grammar School, Ijokodo High…

Grammaire nouvelle? Questions pour des questions (New Grammar? Questions about Questions).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lamy, Andre

1987-01-01

Implications of the "new grammar" approach to teaching French are examined, including the issues of nomenclature, definition, rules and generalizations, and native language use in the second language class. Grammar itself has not changed, and the principal concern is still good usage. (MSE)

Pratiquer une grammaire textuelle (Practicing Textual Grammar).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bourdet, Jean-Francois

1992-01-01

A discussion of textual, as contrasted with traditional, grammar for French second-language instruction argues that textual grammar is essential for acquisition of communicative competence because it identifies grammatical facts relevant to everyday communication and allows the student to experience the construction of meaning through them. (MSE)

An approach to multiscale modelling with graph grammars.

PubMed

Ong, Yongzhi; Streit, Katarína; Henke, Michael; Kurth, Winfried

2014-09-01

Functional-structural plant models (FSPMs) simulate biological processes at different spatial scales. Methods exist for multiscale data representation and modification, but the advantages of using multiple scales in the dynamic aspects of FSPMs remain unclear. Results from multiscale models in various other areas of science that share fundamental modelling issues with FSPMs suggest that potential advantages do exist, and this study therefore aims to introduce an approach to multiscale modelling in FSPMs. A three-part graph data structure and grammar is revisited, and presented with a conceptual framework for multiscale modelling. The framework is used for identifying roles, categorizing and describing scale-to-scale interactions, thus allowing alternative approaches to model development as opposed to correlation-based modelling at a single scale. Reverse information flow (from macro- to micro-scale) is catered for in the framework. The methods are implemented within the programming language XL. Three example models are implemented using the proposed multiscale graph model and framework. The first illustrates the fundamental usage of the graph data structure and grammar, the second uses probabilistic modelling for organs at the fine scale in order to derive crown growth, and the third combines multiscale plant topology with ozone trends and metabolic network simulations in order to model juvenile beech stands under exposure to a toxic trace gas. The graph data structure supports data representation and grammar operations at multiple scales. The results demonstrate that multiscale modelling is a viable method in FSPM and an alternative to correlation-based modelling. Advantages and disadvantages of multiscale modelling are illustrated by comparisons with single-scale implementations, leading to motivations for further research in sensitivity analysis and run-time efficiency for these models.

An approach to multiscale modelling with graph grammars

PubMed Central

Ong, Yongzhi; Streit, Katarína; Henke, Michael; Kurth, Winfried

2014-01-01

Background and Aims Functional–structural plant models (FSPMs) simulate biological processes at different spatial scales. Methods exist for multiscale data representation and modification, but the advantages of using multiple scales in the dynamic aspects of FSPMs remain unclear. Results from multiscale models in various other areas of science that share fundamental modelling issues with FSPMs suggest that potential advantages do exist, and this study therefore aims to introduce an approach to multiscale modelling in FSPMs. Methods A three-part graph data structure and grammar is revisited, and presented with a conceptual framework for multiscale modelling. The framework is used for identifying roles, categorizing and describing scale-to-scale interactions, thus allowing alternative approaches to model development as opposed to correlation-based modelling at a single scale. Reverse information flow (from macro- to micro-scale) is catered for in the framework. The methods are implemented within the programming language XL. Key Results Three example models are implemented using the proposed multiscale graph model and framework. The first illustrates the fundamental usage of the graph data structure and grammar, the second uses probabilistic modelling for organs at the fine scale in order to derive crown growth, and the third combines multiscale plant topology with ozone trends and metabolic network simulations in order to model juvenile beech stands under exposure to a toxic trace gas. Conclusions The graph data structure supports data representation and grammar operations at multiple scales. The results demonstrate that multiscale modelling is a viable method in FSPM and an alternative to correlation-based modelling. Advantages and disadvantages of multiscale modelling are illustrated by comparisons with single-scale implementations, leading to motivations for further research in sensitivity analysis and run-time efficiency for these models. PMID:25134929

Pattern activation/recognition theory of mind

PubMed Central

du Castel, Bertrand

2015-01-01

In his 2012 book How to Create a Mind, Ray Kurzweil defines a “Pattern Recognition Theory of Mind” that states that the brain uses millions of pattern recognizers, plus modules to check, organize, and augment them. In this article, I further the theory to go beyond pattern recognition and include also pattern activation, thus encompassing both sensory and motor functions. In addition, I treat checking, organizing, and augmentation as patterns of patterns instead of separate modules, therefore handling them the same as patterns in general. Henceforth I put forward a unified theory I call “Pattern Activation/Recognition Theory of Mind.” While the original theory was based on hierarchical hidden Markov models, this evolution is based on their precursor: stochastic grammars. I demonstrate that a class of self-describing stochastic grammars allows for unifying pattern activation, recognition, organization, consistency checking, metaphor, and learning, into a single theory that expresses patterns throughout. I have implemented the model as a probabilistic programming language specialized in activation/recognition grammatical and neural operations. I use this prototype to compute and present diagrams for each stochastic grammar and corresponding neural circuit. I then discuss the theory as it relates to artificial network developments, common coding, neural reuse, and unity of mind, concluding by proposing potential paths to validation. PMID:26236228

Pattern activation/recognition theory of mind.

PubMed

du Castel, Bertrand

2015-01-01

In his 2012 book How to Create a Mind, Ray Kurzweil defines a "Pattern Recognition Theory of Mind" that states that the brain uses millions of pattern recognizers, plus modules to check, organize, and augment them. In this article, I further the theory to go beyond pattern recognition and include also pattern activation, thus encompassing both sensory and motor functions. In addition, I treat checking, organizing, and augmentation as patterns of patterns instead of separate modules, therefore handling them the same as patterns in general. Henceforth I put forward a unified theory I call "Pattern Activation/Recognition Theory of Mind." While the original theory was based on hierarchical hidden Markov models, this evolution is based on their precursor: stochastic grammars. I demonstrate that a class of self-describing stochastic grammars allows for unifying pattern activation, recognition, organization, consistency checking, metaphor, and learning, into a single theory that expresses patterns throughout. I have implemented the model as a probabilistic programming language specialized in activation/recognition grammatical and neural operations. I use this prototype to compute and present diagrams for each stochastic grammar and corresponding neural circuit. I then discuss the theory as it relates to artificial network developments, common coding, neural reuse, and unity of mind, concluding by proposing potential paths to validation.

Sensing the Sentence: An Embodied Simulation Approach to Rhetorical Grammar

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rule, Hannah J.

2017-01-01

This article applies the neuroscientific concept of embodied simulation--the process of understanding language through visual, motor, and spatial modalities of the body--to rhetorical grammar and sentence-style pedagogies. Embodied simulation invigorates rhetorical grammar instruction by attuning writers to the felt effects of written language,…

Teaching Grammar to Adult English Language Learners: Focus on Form. CAELA Network Brief

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gallup Rodriguez, Amber

2009-01-01

Many adult English language learners place a high value on learning grammar. Perceiving a link between grammatical accuracy and effective communication, they associate excellent grammar with opportunities for employment and promotion, the attainment of educational goals, and social acceptance by native speakers. Reflecting the disagreement that…

Flexible Processing and the Design of Grammar

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sag, Ivan A.; Wasow, Thomas

2015-01-01

We explore the consequences of letting the incremental and integrative nature of language processing inform the design of competence grammar. What emerges is a view of grammar as a system of local monotonic constraints that provide a direct characterization of the signs (the form-meaning correspondences) of a given language. This…

Grammar and the Lexicon. Working Papers in Linguistics 16.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

University of Trondheim Working Papers in Linguistics, 1993

1993-01-01

In this volume, five working papers are presented. "Minimal Signs and Grammar" (Lars Hellan) proposes that a significant part of the "production" of grammar is incremental, building larger and larger constructs, with lexical objects called minimal signs as the first steps. It also suggests that the basic lexical information in…

Assessing the Need for Change in J-School Grammar Curricula.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Seamon, Marc

2001-01-01

Surveys 100 journalism schools investigating: (1) whether journalism schools treat spelling, punctuation, grammar, and AP style as important factors in improving the state of journalism; (2) how journalism schools are teaching and assessing spelling, punctuation, grammar, and AP style; and (3) whether journalism schools are using entrance or exit…

A Papago Grammar.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zepeda, Ofelia

A Papago grammar, intented to help Papago and other junior high, high school and college students learn and appreciate the language and give linguists an overview of the language, contains background information on the language and the book, two grammar units, a unit of five conversations in Papago, and a section of supplementary material. Text…

A Grammar of Belep

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McCracken, Chelsea Leigh

2012-01-01

This dissertation is a description of the grammar of Belep [yly], an Austronesian language variety spoken by about 1600 people in and around the Belep Isles in New Caledonia. The grammar begins with a summary of the cultural and linguistic background of Belep speakers, followed by chapters on Belep phonology and phonetics, morphology and word…

Effective Intervention for Expressive Grammar in Children with Specific Language Impairment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Smith-Lock, Karen M.; Leitao, Suze; Lambert, Lara; Nickels, Lyndsey

2013-01-01

Background: Children with specific language impairment are known to struggle with expressive grammar. While some studies have shown successful intervention under laboratory conditions, there is a paucity of evidence for the effectiveness of grammar treatment in young children in community settings. Aim: To evaluate the effectiveness of a…

Have You Considered?--Teaching Grammar.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rutan, Jessica

2003-01-01

Provides examples of a journey the author has recently experienced to consider if understanding the rules of grammar impact how a struggling adolescent reads. Suggests that the study of grammar will help her students become better users of the language. Notes that they will become effective listeners and speakers, but more importantly proficient…

(In)Flexibility of Constituency in Japanese in Multi-Modal Categorial Grammar with Structured Phonology

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kubota, Yusuke

2010-01-01

This dissertation proposes a theory of categorial grammar called Multi-Modal Categorial Grammar with Structured Phonology. The central feature that distinguishes this theory from the majority of contemporary syntactic theories is that it decouples (without completely segregating) two aspects of syntax--hierarchical organization (reflecting…

Research into Practice: Grammar Learning and Teaching

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Larsen-Freeman, Diane

2015-01-01

This selective review of the second language acquisition and applied linguistics research literature on grammar learning and teaching falls into three categories: where research has had little impact (the non-interface position), modest impact (form-focused instruction), and where it potentially can have a large impact (reconceiving grammar).…

Creative Grammar and Art Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cunliffe, Leslie

2011-01-01

The grammar of creative practices is described by George Steiner as the "articulate organisation of perception, reflection and experience, the nerve structure of consciousness when it communicates with itself and with others." Steiner's description of creative grammar is consistent with Lev Vygotsky's comment that "art is the social within us, and…

Mobile-Assisted Grammar Exercises: Effects on Self-Editing in L2 Writing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Li, Zhi; Hegelheimer, Volker

2013-01-01

In this paper, we report on the development and implementation of a web-based mobile application, "Grammar Clinic," for an ESL writing class. Drawing on insights from the interactionist approach to Second Language Acquisition (SLA), the Noticing Hypothesis, and mobile-assisted language learning (MALL), "Grammar Clinic" was…

The Place of Grammar in the Language Arts Curriculum.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Einarsson, Robert

The history of grammar instruction includes two approaches: the handbook approach, which is practiced today, and the textbook approach. The handbook approach focuses on rules for correct writing and is an error-based view, while the textbook approach would treat grammar holistically and interpretively and would systematically explain new concepts…

Reading and Grammar Learning through Mobile Phones

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wang, Shudong; Smith, Simon

2013-01-01

This paper describes an ongoing language-learning project, three years into its development. We examine both the feasibility and the limitations of developing English reading and grammar skills through the interface of mobile phones. Throughout the project, reading and grammar materials were regularly sent to students' mobile phones. Students read…

The Role of Simple Semantics in the Process of Artificial Grammar Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Öttl, Birgit; Jäger, Gerhard; Kaup, Barbara

2017-01-01

This study investigated the effect of semantic information on artificial grammar learning (AGL). Recursive grammars of different complexity levels (regular language, mirror language, copy language) were investigated in a series of AGL experiments. In the with-semantics condition, participants acquired semantic information prior to the AGL…

Grammar Teaching and Learning in L2: Necessary, but Boring?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jean, Gladys; Simard, Daphnee

2011-01-01

This descriptive inquiry-based study targeted second language (L2) high school students' (n = 2321) and teachers' (n = 45) beliefs and perceptions about grammar instruction, specifically about grammatical accuracy, corrective feedback, and diverse forms of grammar teaching and learning. Results showed only slight discrepancies between students'…

A Bemba Grammar with Exercises.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hoch, Ernst

This Bemba grammar begins with an introduction which traces the history of the language, stresses the importance of learning it well and offers hints towards achieving this goal. The grammar itself is divided into three major sections: Part 1, "Phonetics," deals with the Bemba alphabet, tonality, and orthography; Part 2, "Parts of Speech,"…

Environmental Peace Education in Foreign Language Learners' English Grammar Lessons

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Arikan, Arda

2009-01-01

English language teachers create contexts to teach grammar so that meaningful learning occurs. In this study, English grammar is contextualized through environmental peace education activities to raise students' awareness of global issues. Two sources provided data to evaluate the success of this instructional process. Fourth-year pre-service…

Grammar-Guided Writing for AAC Users

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hunnicutt, Sheri; Magnuson, Tina

2007-01-01

A method of grammar-guided writing has been devised to guide graphic sign users through the construction of text messages for use in e-mail and other applications with a remote receiver. The purpose is to promote morphologically and syntactically correct sentences. The available grammatical structures in grammar-guided writing are the highest…

A Grammar of Northern Mao (Mawes Aas'e)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ahland, Michael Bryan

2012-01-01

Northern Mao is an endangered Afroasiatic-Omotic language of western Ethiopia with fewer than 5,000 speakers. This study is a comprehensive grammar of the language, written from a functional/typological perspective which embraces historical change as an explanation for synchronic structure. The grammar introduces the Northern Mao people, aspects…

Mungbam Grammar

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lovegren, Jesse Stuart James

2013-01-01

This dissertation is an attempt to state what is known at present about the grammar of Mungbam (ISO 693-3 [mij]). Mungbam is a Niger-Congo language spoken in the Northwest Region of Cameroon. The dissertation is a descriptive grammar, covering the phonetics, phonology morphology and syntax of the language. Source data are texts and elicited data…

Automatic event recognition and anomaly detection with attribute grammar by learning scene semantics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Qi, Lin; Yao, Zhenyu; Li, Li; Dong, Junyu

2007-11-01

In this paper we present a novel framework for automatic event recognition and abnormal behavior detection with attribute grammar by learning scene semantics. This framework combines learning scene semantics by trajectory analysis and constructing attribute grammar-based event representation. The scene and event information is learned automatically. Abnormal behaviors that disobey scene semantics or event grammars rules are detected. By this method, an approach to understanding video scenes is achieved. Further more, with this prior knowledge, the accuracy of abnormal event detection is increased.

Multiple Grammars and the Logic of Learnability in Second Language Acquisition

PubMed Central

Roeper, Tom W.

2016-01-01

The core notion of modern Universal Grammar is that language ability requires abstract representation in terms of hierarchy, movement operations, abstract features on words, and fixed mapping to meaning. These mental structures are a step toward integrating representational knowledge of all kinds into a larger model of cognitive psychology. Examining first and second language at once provides clues as to how abstractly we should represent this knowledge. The abstract nature of grammar allows both the formulation of many grammars and the possibility that a rule of one grammar could apply to another grammar. We argue that every language contains Multiple Grammars which may reflect different language families. We develop numerous examples of how the same abstract rules can apply in various languages and develop a theory of how language modules (case-marking, topicalization, and quantification) interact to predict L2 acquisition paths. In particular we show in depth how Germanic Verb-second operations, based on Verb-final structure, can apply in English. The argument is built around how and where V2 from German can apply in English, seeking to explain the crucial contrast: “nothing” yelled out Bill/*“nothing” yelled Bill out in terms of the necessary abstractness of the V2 rule. PMID:26869945

PCC Framework for Program-Generators

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kong, Soonho; Choi, Wontae; Yi, Kwangkeun

2009-01-01

In this paper, we propose a proof-carrying code framework for program-generators. The enabling technique is abstract parsing, a static string analysis technique, which is used as a component for generating and validating certificates. Our framework provides an efficient solution for certifying program-generators whose safety properties are expressed in terms of the grammar representing the generated program. The fixed-point solution of the analysis is generated and attached with the program-generator on the code producer side. The consumer receives the code with a fixed-point solution and validates that the received fixed point is indeed a fixed point of the received code. This validation can be done in a single pass.

A stochastic context free grammar based framework for analysis of protein sequences

PubMed Central

Dyrka, Witold; Nebel, Jean-Christophe

2009-01-01

Background In the last decade, there have been many applications of formal language theory in bioinformatics such as RNA structure prediction and detection of patterns in DNA. However, in the field of proteomics, the size of the protein alphabet and the complexity of relationship between amino acids have mainly limited the application of formal language theory to the production of grammars whose expressive power is not higher than stochastic regular grammars. However, these grammars, like other state of the art methods, cannot cover any higher-order dependencies such as nested and crossing relationships that are common in proteins. In order to overcome some of these limitations, we propose a Stochastic Context Free Grammar based framework for the analysis of protein sequences where grammars are induced using a genetic algorithm. Results This framework was implemented in a system aiming at the production of binding site descriptors. These descriptors not only allow detection of protein regions that are involved in these sites, but also provide insight in their structure. Grammars were induced using quantitative properties of amino acids to deal with the size of the protein alphabet. Moreover, we imposed some structural constraints on grammars to reduce the extent of the rule search space. Finally, grammars based on different properties were combined to convey as much information as possible. Evaluation was performed on sites of various sizes and complexity described either by PROSITE patterns, domain profiles or a set of patterns. Results show the produced binding site descriptors are human-readable and, hence, highlight biologically meaningful features. Moreover, they achieve good accuracy in both annotation and detection. In addition, findings suggest that, unlike current state-of-the-art methods, our system may be particularly suited to deal with patterns shared by non-homologous proteins. Conclusion A new Stochastic Context Free Grammar based framework has been introduced allowing the production of binding site descriptors for analysis of protein sequences. Experiments have shown that not only is this new approach valid, but produces human-readable descriptors for binding sites which have been beyond the capability of current machine learning techniques. PMID:19814800

The Impact of High Stakes Testing: The Australian Story

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Klenowski, Val; Wyatt-Smith, Claire

2012-01-01

High stakes testing in Australia was introduced in 2008 by way of the National Assessment Program--Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN). Currently, every year all students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 are assessed on the same days using national tests in Reading, Writing, Language Conventions (Spelling, Grammar and Punctuation) and Numeracy. In 2010 the…

Six-Year Ukrainian as a Second Language Program, Grade 11 Teaching Unit.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Boruszczak, Bohdan

The teaching unit provides materials for the fifth year of the six-year secondary school curriculum in Ukrainian as a second language. It focuses on basic vocabulary and communications skills related to the theme of "the restaurant" including: the development of listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills; specific elements of grammar (verb…

School Sector Differences in Student Achievement in Australian Primary and Secondary Schools: A Longitudinal Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Marks, Gary N.

2015-01-01

This article examines school sector differences in student performance Years 3, 5, and 7 in numeracy, reading, writing, spelling and grammar using data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children and the national testing program (NAPLAN). At each of the 3 Year levels, there are sizable school sector differences with students from…

Implementing Task-Oriented Content-Based Instruction for First- and Second-Generation Immigrant Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Santana-Williamson, Eliana

2013-01-01

This article discusses how the ESL program at an ethnically/linguistically diverse community college (between San Diego and the Mexican border) moved from a general, grammar-based ESL curriculum to a content-based instruction (CBI) curriculum. The move was designed to better prepare 1st- and 2nd-generation immigrant students for freshman…

Teaching French Transformational Grammar by Means of Computer-Generated Video-Tapes.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Adler, Alfred; Thomas, Jean Jacques

This paper describes a pilot program in an integrated media presentation of foreign languages and the production and usage of seven computer-generated video tapes which demonstrate various aspects of French syntax. This instructional set could form the basis for CAI lessons in which the student is presented images identical to those on the video…

Music and Literacy: Strategies Using "Comprehension Connections" by Tanny McGregor

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Frasher, Kathleen Diane

2014-01-01

Music and literacy share many of the same skills; therefore, it is no surprise that music and literacy programs can be used together to help children learn to read. Music study can help promote literacy skills such as vocabulary, articulation, pronunciation, grammar, fluency, writing, sentence patterns, rhythm/parts of speech, auditory processing,…

Dual-modality impairment of implicit learning of letter-strings versus color-patterns in patients with schizophrenia.

PubMed

Chiu, Ming-Jang; Liu, Kristina; Hsieh, Ming H; Hwu, Hai-Gwo

2005-12-12

Implicit learning was reported to be intact in schizophrenia using artificial grammar learning. However, emerging evidence indicates that artificial grammar learning is not a unitary process. The authors used dual coding stimuli and schizophrenia clinical symptom dimensions to re-evaluate the effect of schizophrenia on various components of artificial grammar learning. Letter string and color pattern artificial grammar learning performances were compared between 63 schizophrenic patients and 27 comparison subjects. Four symptom dimensions derived from a Chinese Positive and Negative Symptom Scale ratings were correlated with patients' artificial grammar implicit learning performances along the two stimulus dimensions. Patients' explicit memory performances were assessed by verbal paired associates and visual reproduction subtests of the Wechsler Memory Scales Revised Version to provide a contrast to their implicit memory function. Schizophrenia severely hindered color pattern artificial grammar learning while the disease affected lexical string artificial grammar learning to a lesser degree after correcting the influences from age, education and the performance of explicit memory function of both verbal and visual modalities. Both learning performances correlated significantly with the severity of patients' schizophrenic clinical symptom dimensions that reflect poor abstract thinking, disorganized thinking, and stereotyped thinking. The results of this study suggested that schizophrenia affects various mechanisms of artificial grammar learning differently. Implicit learning, knowledge acquisition in the absence of conscious awareness, is not entirely intact in patients with schizophrenia. Schizophrenia affects implicit learning through an impairment of the ability of making abstractions from rules and at least in part decreasing the capacity for perceptual learning.

Effect of Jigsaw I Technique on Teaching Turkish Grammar

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Arslan, Akif

2016-01-01

The purpose of this study is to find out the effect of Jigsaw I technique on students' academic success and attitude towards the course in teaching Turkish grammar. For that purpose, three grammar topics (spelling and punctuation marks rules) were determined and an experimental study conforming to "control group preliminary-testing final…

Grammar Is Back, but When Will We Start Cooking?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vavra, Ed

2003-01-01

Suggests that the current "return" to grammar will fail unless educators can come to terms with definitions of fundamental grammatical concepts. Considers how educators cannot go back to teaching the traditional, because the traditional no longer exists. Argues that pedagogical grammar currently has too many cooks, all trying to prepare the same…

The Journalism Writing Course: Evaluation of Hybrid versus Online Grammar Instruction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moore, Jensen; Jones, Khristen

2015-01-01

This study examined introductory journalism writing courses and compared hybrid (part online/part classroom) versus online grammar instruction. The hybrid structure allowed for grammar topics to be taught online, with a pretest following, and then reviewing missed/difficult pretest concepts in class prior to a posttest. The quasi-experimental…

Construction Morphology and the Parallel Architecture of Grammar

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Booij, Geert; Audring, Jenny

2017-01-01

This article presents a systematic exposition of how the basic ideas of Construction Grammar (CxG) (Goldberg, 2006) and the Parallel Architecture (PA) of grammar (Jackendoff, 2002]) provide the framework for a proper account of morphological phenomena, in particular word formation. This framework is referred to as Construction Morphology (CxM). As…

A GRAMMAR OF SPOKEN CHINESE.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

CHAO, YUEN REN

THE AUTHOR OF THIS GRAMMAR STATES THAT THIS IS A "DISCUSSION BOOK" AND NOT AN INSTRUCTION BOOK FOR LEARNING CHINESE. HIS ANALYSIS OF CHINESE GRAMMAR IS BASED ON CURRENT LINGUISTIC METHODS AND ASSUMES THE READER HAS SOME KNOWLEDGE OF LINGUISTICS. THIS BOOK CONSTITUTES A REFERENCE WORK FOR LINGUISTS AND STUDENTS OF THE CHINESE LANGUAGE. MAJOR…

A REFERENCE GRAMMAR OF ADAMAWA FULANI. AFRICAN LANGUAGE MONOGRAPH NUMBER 8.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

STENNES, LESLIE H.

THIS REFERENCE WORK IS A STRUCTURAL GRAMMAR OF THE ADAMAWA DIALECT OF FULANI AS SPOKEN IN NIGERIA AND CAMEROUN. IT IS PRIMARILY WRITTEN FOR LINGUISTS AND THOSE WHO ALREADY KNOW FULANI. THE GRAMMAR IS DIVIDED INTO THREE PARTS--(1) PHONEMICS AND MORPHOPHONEMICS, DISCUSSING SEGMENTAL AND SUPRASEGMENTAL PHONEMES, PERMITTED SEQUENCES OF PHONEMES,…

A Reference Grammar of Bena

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Morrison, Michelle Elizabeth

2011-01-01

This dissertation is a grammar of Rena (ISO bez), a Bantu language spoken in southwestern Tanzania by approximately 600,000 people. Bena is largely undocumented, and though aspects of Bena grammar have been described, there is no usable, detailed treatment of the Bena language. Therefore the goal of this dissertation is provide the first detailed…

Using Three Online Course Management Systems in EFL Instruction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Al-Jarf, Reima Sado

2005-01-01

Nicenet, WebCT and Moodle were used to teach grammar to freshman students at the College of Languages and Translation, King Saud University in Saudi Arabia. The subjects were divided into three groups and were randomly assigned to the three online courses. The same questions, discussion threads, grammar websites, daily grammar lesson, exercises…

Spoken Grammar: An Urgent Necessity in the EFL Context

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Al-wossabi, Sami A.

2014-01-01

Recent studies in corpus linguistics have revealed apparent inconsistencies between the prescriptive grammar presented in EFL textbooks and the type of grammar used in the speech of native speakers. Such variations and learning gaps deprive EFL learners of the actual use of English and delay their oral/aural developmental processes. The focus of…

The Role of Teaching Grammar in First Language Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Demir, Sezgin; Erdogan, Ayse

2018-01-01

Grammar; while originating from the natural structure of the language also is the system which makes it possible for different language functions meet within the body of common rules especially communication. Having command of the language used, speaking and writing it correctly require strong grammar knowledge actually. However only knowing the…

Grammar for College Writing: A Sentence-Composing Approach

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Killgallon, Don; Killgallon, Jenny

2010-01-01

Across America, in thousands of classrooms, from elementary school to high school, the time-tested sentence-composing approach has given students tools to become better writers. Now the authors present a much anticipated sentence-composing grammar worktext for college writing. This book presents a new and easier way to understand grammar: (1) Noun…

The Place of Grammar in the ESL/EFL Classroom: An Annotated Bibliography.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kotapish, Carl E.

This annotated bibliography includes citations of journal articles and book chapters that focus on current theories related to teaching grammar in English-as-a-Second-Language and English-as-a-Foreign-Language classrooms. Citations include: (1) "Field Independence-Dependence and the Teaching of Grammar" (R. G. Abraham); (2) "Making…

Teachers' Perceptions about Grammar Teaching

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thu, Tran Hoang

2009-01-01

This study investigates English as a second language (ESL) teachers' beliefs in grammar teaching. A 32-item questionnaire was administered to 11 ESL teachers in a language school in California. The results show that the participants generally believe that the formal study of grammar is essential to the eventual mastery of a foreign or second…

Propelling Students into Active Grammar Participation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jurhill, Dennis A.

2011-01-01

"O! this learning, what a thing it is." -W. Shakespeare, "The Taming of the Shrew." The aim of this action research was to find out if active grammar involvement amongst students might lead to better results. My approach was to activate my students during grammar instruction by using cooperative learning: that is a form of…

State Competency Testing for Teachers: Problems with Testing Grammar,

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shafer, Robert E.

In Arizona, beginning teachers applying for certification must take the Arizona Teacher Proficiency Examination which tests professional knowledge, reading, mathematics, and grammar. The high failure rate on the grammar test has caused a great deal of concern; 40 percent of the examinees, and a higher percentage of minority groups, failed it in…

My New Teaching Partner? Using the Grammar Checker in Writing Instruction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Potter, Reva; Fuller, Dorothy

2008-01-01

Grammar checkers do not claim to teach grammar; they are tools to bring potential problems to the writer's attention. They also offer only formal and Standard English preferences, limiting the freer expression of some literary forms. Without guidance, students may misuse the checker, become frustrated, and feel discouraged. Users must be…

Discussion. How Far Does a Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure Take Us in Understanding Children's Language Development?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Journal of Child Language, 1998

1998-01-01

Presents the responses of 12 authors to Michael Tomasello's essay, which comments on Adele Goldberg's recent book, "Constructions: A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure." Goldberg's book develops the theory of construction grammar for a set of problems associated with verb-argument structure. (SM)

EEG: Elements of English Grammar: Rules Explained Simply. Workbook.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ratti, Marianne

This workbook is a supplement to Harold Van Winkle's "Elements of English Grammar: Rules Explained Simply," a book intended for self-instruction which presents the basic rules of standard English grammar in an easy-to-understand manner. The workbook's six chapters correspond to those in the book and contain exercises on: (1) The…

GRAMMAR--THE PROTEUS OF THE ENGLISH CURRICULUM.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

ASTON, KATHARINE O.

THE ENGLISH CURRICULUM CAN BE MADE MORE EFFECTIVE BY CONSIDERING THE SIGNIFICANT PART PLAYED BY THE COMPONENT OF GRAMMAR. THE NATIVE SPEAKER OF ENGLISH POSSESSES AN INTUITIVE KNOWLEDGE OF THE RULES OF GRAMMAR AND YET CANNOT EXPLAIN WHAT HIS INTUITION KNOWS. THEREFORE, A PRECISE, ECONOMICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE LANGUAGE MECHANISM AND HOW IT FUNCTIONS…

Electrical Stimulation of Broca's Area Enhances Implicit Learning of an Artificial Grammar

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

de Vries, Meinou H.; Barth, Andre C. R.; Maiworm, Sandra; Knecht, Stefan; Zwitserlood, Pienie; Floel, Agnes

2010-01-01

Artificial grammar learning constitutes a well-established model for the acquisition of grammatical knowledge in a natural setting. Previous neuroimaging studies demonstrated that Broca's area (left BA 44/45) is similarly activated by natural syntactic processing and artificial grammar learning. The current study was conducted to investigate the…

A Diversity of Grammars: Breaking the Boundaries of "The Well Made Box."

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sidler, Michelle

In his 1976 article, "Grammars of Style: New Options in Composition," Winston Weathers calls for a Grammar B, an alternate set of conventions which govern the construction of whole compositions. He urges compositionists to look beyond the "well-made box" and consider other options for compositional patterns and discourse…

Student Teacher Beliefs on Grammar Instruction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Graus, Johan; Coppen, Peter-Arno

2016-01-01

The role of grammar teaching in foreign language education is a controversial one both in second language acquisition (SLA) research and language pedagogy and, as a result, a potential source of confusion to student teachers. The objective of this study was to gain insight into the beliefs on grammar teaching of student teachers of English as a…

Necessity of Grammar Teaching

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zhang, Jianyun

2009-01-01

Grammar is often misunderstood in the language teaching field. The misconception lies in the view that grammar is a collection of arbitrary rules about static structures in the language. Further questionable claims are that the structures do not have to be thought, learners will acquire them on their own, or if the structures are taught, the…

Grammaire francaise pour etudiants americains (French Grammar for American Students): Workbook and Answers.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Giauque, Gerald S.

This workbook in French grammar, intended for American college students, provides instruction and practice in French morphology, syntax, vocabulary, punctuation, and language style at the intermediate level. It is also designed to increase or reinforce the students' understanding of English grammar, based on the assumption that American students…

Literary Texts and Grammar Instruction: Revisiting the Inductive Presentation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Paesani, Kate

2005-01-01

This article outlines an approach to explicit grammar instruction that uses literary texts as comprehensible, meaning-bearing input. In this approach, which employs strategies from the teaching of grammar and the teaching of reading, literary texts serve as the basis of the inductive presentation of new grammatical forms and as a springboard for…

Video Game Based Learning in English Grammar

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Singaravelu, G.

2008-01-01

The study enlightens the effectiveness of Video Game Based Learning in English Grammar at standard VI. A Video Game package was prepared and it consisted of self-learning activities in play way manner which attracted the minds of the young learners. Chief objective: Find out the effectiveness of Video-Game based learning in English grammar.…

Stratificational Grammar.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Algeo, John

1968-01-01

According to the author, most grammarians have been writing stratificational grammars without knowing it because they have dealt with units that are related to one another, but not simply as a whole to its parts, or as a class to its members. The question, then, is not whether a grammar is stratified but whether it is explicitly stratified. This…

What Makes a Good Story? Reading Education Report No. 5.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bruce, Bertram

Children learning to read are often exposed to "stories" which are really little more than lists of sentences. A good story has at least continuity and conflict which may be analyzed in two ways: story grammar (analysis of setting and plot) and plans and beliefs (analysis of the plans and beliefs of the characters, including the reader's…

Thematic Structure in Barack Obama's Press Conference: A Systemic Functional Grammar Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kuswoyo, Heri

2016-01-01

This article looks into the theme--rheme pattern of presidential press conference that can be employed by speakers to organize the text in order to have a texture. Since a message should be conveyed in clause contextually and co-textually. Therefore, the objectives of this study are to analyze and describe the theme-rheme pattern employed in…

Local Semantic Trace: A Method to Analyze Very Small and Unstructured Texts for Propositional Knowledge

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pirnay-Dummer, Pablo

2015-01-01

A local semantic trace is a certain quasi-propositional structure that can still be reconstructed from written content that is incomplete or does not follow a proper grammar. It can also retrace bits of knowledge from text containing only very few words, making the microstructure of these artifacts of knowledge externalization available for…

Grammar and Lexicon in Individuals with Autism: A Quantitative Analysis of a Large Italian Corpus

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tuzzi, Arjuna

2009-01-01

Statistical and linguistic procedures were implemented to analyze a large corpus of texts written by 37 individuals with autism and 92 facilitators (without disabilities), producing written conversations by means of PCs. Such texts were compared and contrasted to identify the specific traits of the lexis of the group of individuals with autism and…

Quels outils pour l'analyse linguistique ou les prealables d'un enseignement de la grammaire? (What Tools for Linguistic Analysis or Preliminaries for Grammar Instruction?)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Darot, Mireille

1983-01-01

The usefulness of classifications within and comparisons among languages as a means of discovering the commonalities of human language is discussed. Metalinguistics offers not only the potential for analyzing the specifics of each language, but also the tools for teaching across languages. (MSE)

Developmental Constraints on Learning Artificial Grammars with Fixed, Flexible and Free Word Order

PubMed Central

Nowak, Iga; Baggio, Giosuè

2017-01-01

Human learning, although highly flexible and efficient, is constrained in ways that facilitate or impede the acquisition of certain systems of information. Some such constraints, active during infancy and childhood, have been proposed to account for the apparent ease with which typically developing children acquire language. In a series of experiments, we investigated the role of developmental constraints on learning artificial grammars with a distinction between shorter and relatively frequent words (‘function words,’ F-words) and longer and less frequent words (‘content words,’ C-words). We constructed 4 finite-state grammars, in which the order of F-words, relative to C-words, was either fixed (F-words always occupied the same positions in a string), flexible (every F-word always followed a C-word), or free. We exposed adults (N = 84) and kindergarten children (N = 100) to strings from each of these artificial grammars, and we assessed their ability to recognize strings with the same structure, but a different vocabulary. Adults were better at recognizing strings when regularities were available (i.e., fixed and flexible order grammars), while children were better at recognizing strings from the grammars consistent with the attested distribution of function and content words in natural languages (i.e., flexible and free order grammars). These results provide evidence for a link between developmental constraints on learning and linguistic typology. PMID:29089910

Teaching Photovoltaics: From Grammar School to Graduate School

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ahrenkiel, Richard

2009-05-01

Photovoltaics (PV) has certainly become the topic of the times in economic and political circles. I have had the opportunity to teach some aspect of the subject at a wide range of educational levels. I taught a graduate course, as an Adjunct Professor at the Colorado School of Mines (CSM), over the time period from 1990 to 2000. As a consequence of various outreach programs, like those sponsored by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, I have given presentations to audiences ranging from grammar school to high school. I have given another type of presentation to the service clubs like Rotary International and Kiwanis Clubs. Finally, in recent years and the rapid growth of the photovoltaic industry, I have been asked to give a basic presentation to business people with modest technical backgrounds. Each audience presents a different set of challenges and each requires a different type of presentation.

The Grammar Movie Project

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kreutner, Edith

2015-01-01

In this case study, I will show how directing a movie on grammar can help students improve their oral skills as well as their language competency, team working and planning skills, and also teach them about learning itself. I will present an innovative teaching project that uses the medium of film to get students engaged with grammar and that aims…

What Is Grammar and Why Teach It?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Greenbaum, Sidney

The word "grammar" can be used in many ways: a general theory of language description; a theory for describing one language; a description of a particular language, either in the form of a book (an "English grammar") or the contents of that book; an ideal as opposed to actual description of a language; the properties and processes of a language…

Supporting French Teachers for a Paradigm Shift in Grammar Education: A Teacher Trainer's Perspective

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thibeault, Joël

2016-01-01

This article presents a series of pedagogical workshops that was offered over two years to a cohort of 50 teachers practising in Ontarian French schools. Focusing on grammar teaching, the workshops' objectives were to: (a) contribute to the teachers' development of linguistic knowledge consistent with the grammar under new provincial standards and…

Using Dual-Task Methodology to Dissociate Automatic from Nonautomatic Processes Involved in Artificial Grammar Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hendricks, Michelle A.; Conway, Christopher M.; Kellogg, Ronald T.

2013-01-01

Previous studies have suggested that both automatic and intentional processes contribute to the learning of grammar and fragment knowledge in artificial grammar learning (AGL) tasks. To explore the relative contribution of automatic and intentional processes to knowledge gained in AGL, we utilized dual-task methodology to dissociate automatic and…

Functional Grammar and Its Implications for English Teaching and Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Feng, Zhiwen

2013-01-01

Functional grammar has received more and more attention from domestic scholars in the world of linguistics since 1970s, but it is still new to most EFL teachers. In spite of controversies about its applications into classroom teaching, this new grammar model has its own advantages and can facilitate EFL students to achieve academic success. This…

Effect of Direct Grammar Instruction on Student Writing Skills

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Robinson, Lisa; Feng, Jay

2016-01-01

Grammar Instruction has an important role to play in helping students to speak and write more effectively. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of direct grammar instruction on the quality of student's writing skills. The participants in this study included 18 fifth grade students and two fifth grade teachers. Based on the results…

Noticing Grammar in L2 Writing and Problem-Solving Strategies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Geist, Monika

2017-01-01

Noticing plays an important role for second language acquisition. Since the formulation of the output hypothesis (Swain, 1985), it has been proven that producing output can lead to noticing. Studies on noticing have revealed little focus on grammar, and an in-depth investigation of grammar noticing has not been conducted so far. Studies into…

Corrections on Grammar, Sentence Variety and Developing Detail to Qualify Academic Essay of Indonesian Learners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Solikhah, Imroatus

2017-01-01

This experimental research examines: (1) significant differences of corrections on grammar, sentence variety and developing details on the quality of the essay by Indonesian learners; and (2) different effect of corrections on grammar, sentence variety, and developing details on the quality of the essay. Treatments for each were served as follows:…

Pair Counting to Improve Grammar and Spoken Fluency

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hanson, Stephanie

2017-01-01

English language learners are often more grammatically accurate in writing than in speaking. As students focus on meaning while speaking, their spoken fluency comes at a cost: their grammatical accuracy decreases. The author wanted to find a way to help her students improve their oral grammar; that is, she wanted them to focus on grammar while…

GenieTutor: A Computer Assisted Second-Language Learning System Based on Semantic and Grammar Correctness Evaluations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kwon, Oh-Woog; Lee, Kiyoung; Kim, Young-Kil; Lee, Yunkeun

2015-01-01

This paper introduces a Dialog-Based Computer-Assisted second-Language Learning (DB-CALL) system using semantic and grammar correctness evaluations and the results of its experiment. While the system dialogues with English learners about a given topic, it automatically evaluates the grammar and content properness of their English utterances, then…

Cooperative Learning as a Correction and Grammar Revision Technique: Communicative Exchanges, Self-Correction Rates and Scores

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Servetti, Sara

2010-01-01

This paper focuses on cooperative learning (CL) used as a correction and grammar revision technique and considers the data collected in six Italian parallel classes, three of which (sample classes) corrected mistakes and revised grammar through cooperative learning, while the other three (control classes) in a traditional way. All the classes…

Density of Visual Input Enhancement and Grammar Learning: A Research Proposal

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tran, Thu Hoang

2009-01-01

Research in the field of second language acquisition (SLA) has been done to ascertain the effectiveness of visual input enhancement (VIE) on grammar learning. However, one issue remains unexplored: the effects of VIE density on grammar learning. This paper presents a research proposal to investigate the effects of the density of VIE on English…

Confidence and Competence among Community College Students: Self-Efficacy and Performance in Grammar

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Collins, Steve; Bissell, Kimberly

2004-01-01

Proper grammar is crucial for effective communication. Two surveys of students in an introductory writing course sought to identify predictors of grammar ability. Students demonstrated a limited grasp of the language, struggling with such issues as the distinction between "it's" and "its." Women performed better than men at the beginning of the…

Spoken Grammar Awareness Raising: Does It Affect the Listening Ability of Iranian EFL Learners?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rashtchi, Mojgan; Afzali, Mahnaz

2011-01-01

Advances in spoken corpora analysis have brought about new insights into language pedagogy and have led to an awareness of the characteristics of spoken language. Current findings have shown that grammar of spoken language is different from written language. However, most listening and speaking materials are concocted based on written grammar and…

Functional Grammar and Teaching of Reading--A Pedagogy Based on Graded Teaching of College English in China

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Xu, Tuo; Zhang, Beili

2015-01-01

This article discusses the importance of functional grammar and demonstrates its application to the teaching of reading among graded college students. Functional grammar holds that a discourse is composed of two levels: the interior level and the exterior level. Therefore, reading activities involve both linguistic elements and contexts.…

The Gang's All Here: Grammar Goes Global for Purdue, Unisa and Adelaide University

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Duff, Andrea; Spangenberg, Brady; Carter, Susanna; Miller, Julia

2010-01-01

The University of South Australia and Purdue University (Indiana) launched the "Grammar Gang Blog" in June 2008, as a collaborative forum for talking about language. The blog reaches a far-flung community of learners from Australia to the United States, Brisbane to Bangalore and Ghana to Germany. The Grammar Gang--where Owls meet…

Teachers' Attitudes towards Teaching English Grammar: A Scale Development Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Polat, Murat

2017-01-01

In most ELT classes, the importance of grammar, how it should be taught or how much it should be integrated into language teaching are still matters of discussion. Considering this fact, learning teachers' attitudes towards teaching grammar is significantly valuable for researchers. This study thus aimed to design a scale that identifies teachers'…

A Grammar of Sierra Popoluca (Soteapanec, a Mixe-Zoquean Language)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

de Jong Boudreault, Lynda J.

2009-01-01

This dissertation is a comprehensive description of the grammar of Sierra Popoluca (SP, aka Soteapanec), a Mixe-Zoquean language spoken by approximately 28,000 people in Veracruz, Mexico. This grammar begins with an introduction to the language, its language family, a typological overview of the language, a brief history of my fieldwork, and the…

Characteristics of Early Vocabulary and Grammar Development in Slovenian-Speaking Infants and Toddlers: A CDI-Adaptation Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Marjanovic-Umek, Ljubica; Fekonja-Peklaj, Urska; Podlesek, Anja

2013-01-01

A large body of research shows that vocabulary does not develop independently of grammar, representing a better predictor of the grammatical complexity of toddlers' utterances than age. This study examines for the first time the characteristics of vocabulary and grammar development in Slovenian-speaking infants and toddlers using the Slovenian…

Chamorro Reference Grammar. Pali Language Texts: Micronesia.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Topping, Donald M.; Dungca, Bernadita C.

This detailed reference grammar of Chamorro, the native Malayo-Polynesian language spoken in Guam and the other Mariana Islands (Saipan, Rota, Tinian), differs from earlier grammars of the language in that: (1) it includes new data; (2) it offers a different interpretation of some of the data based on more recent linguistic concepts; and (3) it is…

Phonological Memory and the Acquisition of Grammar in Child L2 Learners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Verhagen, Josje; Leseman, Paul; Messer, Marielle

2015-01-01

Previous studies show that second language (L2) learners with large phonological memory spans outperform learners with smaller memory spans on tests of L2 grammar. The current study investigated the relationship between phonological memory and L2 grammar in more detail than has been done earlier. Specifically, we asked how phonological memory…

Effects of Using Self-Explanation on a Web-Based Chinese Sentence-Learning System

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chang, Jia-Wei; Lee, Ming-Che; Su, Chien-Yuan; Wang, Tzone-I

2017-01-01

Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) learners generally encounter difficulty in using some special rules of Chinese grammar because such grammar points do not exist in their native languages. CFL learners require an effective learning strategy to assist them in acquiring a greater understanding of Chinese grammar. Thus, we integrated a…

Validity of a parent-report measure of vocabulary and grammar for Spanish-speaking toddlers.

PubMed

Thal, D; Jackson-Maldonado, D; Acosta, D

2000-10-01

The validity of the Fundación MacArthur Inventario del Desarrollo de Habilidades Comunicativas: Palabras y Enunciados (IDHC:PE) was examined with twenty 20- and nineteen 28-month-old, typically developing, monolingual, Spanish-speaking children living in Mexico. One measure of vocabulary (number of words) and two measures of grammar (mean of the three longest utterances and grammatical complexity score) from the IDHC:PE were compared to behavioral measures of vocabulary (number of different words from a language sample and number of objects named in a confrontation naming task) and one behavioral measure of grammar (mean length of utterance from a language sample). Only vocabulary measures were assessed in the 20-month-olds because of floor effects on the grammar measures. Results indicated validity for assessing expressive vocabulary in 20-month-olds and expressive vocabulary and grammar in 28-month-olds.

Measuring strategic control in artificial grammar learning.

PubMed

Norman, Elisabeth; Price, Mark C; Jones, Emma

2011-12-01

In response to concerns with existing procedures for measuring strategic control over implicit knowledge in artificial grammar learning (AGL), we introduce a more stringent measurement procedure. After two separate training blocks which each consisted of letter strings derived from a different grammar, participants either judged the grammaticality of novel letter strings with respect to only one of these two grammars (pure-block condition), or had the target grammar varying randomly from trial to trial (novel mixed-block condition) which required a higher degree of conscious flexible control. Random variation in the colour and font of letters was introduced to disguise the nature of the rule and reduce explicit learning. Strategic control was observed both in the pure-block and mixed-block conditions, and even among participants who did not realise the rule was based on letter identity. This indicated detailed strategic control in the absence of explicit learning. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Integration of Speech and Natural Language

DTIC Science & Technology

1988-04-01

major activities: • Development of the syntax and semantics components for natural language processing. • Integration of the developed syntax and...evaluating the performance of speech recognition algonthms developed K» under the Strategic Computing Program. grs Our work on natural language processing...included the developement of a grammar (syntax) that uses the Uiuficanon gnmmaj formaMsm (an augmented context free formalism). The Unification

Integrating CALL and Genre Theory: A Proposal to Increase Students' Literacy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lirola, Maria Martinez; Cuevas, Maria Tabuenca

2008-01-01

The use of computer programs that can be used to correct and assess students' written work in the EFL classroom has become more commonplace within the last decade. This paper discusses the role of CALL in the process of data collection, standardisation of assessment criteria and compilation of the number of errors in the areas of grammar learning…

Implicit Acquisition of Grammars with Crossed and Nested Non-Adjacent Dependencies: Investigating the Push-Down Stack Model

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Udden, Julia; Ingvar, Martin; Hagoort, Peter; Petersson, Karl M.

2012-01-01

A recent hypothesis in empirical brain research on language is that the fundamental difference between animal and human communication systems is captured by the distinction between finite-state and more complex phrase-structure grammars, such as context-free and context-sensitive grammars. However, the relevance of this distinction for the study…

Teaching Grammar through Task-Based Language Teaching to Young EFL Learners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yildiz, Mustafa; Senel, Mufit

2017-01-01

The present study investigates the effects of Task-Based Language Teaching on students' grammar knowledge in the field of teaching grammar. It has been studied with 32 students from 8th grade during a two-and-a-half-month process. Throughout this process, students firstly are applied a pre-test to examine their level and to confirm whether there…

Triumph through Texting: Restoring Learners' Interest in Grammar

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hedjazi Moghari, Mona; Marandi, S. Susan

2017-01-01

It is usually the case that learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) are exposed to language materials in class only, and of course in such a short space of time, they do not always find enough chance to practice English grammar features and become aware of their grammar mistakes. As a potential solution to this problem, the current study…

Bridging the Gap between Linguistic Theory and L1 Grammar Education--Experts' Views on Essential Linguistic Concepts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

van Rijt, Jimmy; Coppen, Peter-Arno

2017-01-01

L1 grammar education is internationally criticised because of its pedagogy and its curriculum content. There is a gap between linguistic theory and school grammar in which the latter rarely makes use of possibly relevant insights from the former. At the same time, linguistics itself has never seriously undertaken attempts to identify the…

German Grammar in the Students' Words: The "Essentialization" of German Grammar by American College-Level Learners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chavez, Monika

2011-01-01

This study of 134 college-level learners of German, enrolled in four years of instruction, showed them to "essentialize" German grammar when asked to describe it to a hypothetical friend. Kubota defined the term essentialization to capture learners' views of the target culture. Its main characteristic is the presupposition of "essential, stable,…

The Relationship between Teachers' Beliefs of Grammar Instruction and Classroom Practices in the Saudi Context

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Alghanmi, Bayan; Shukri, Nadia

2016-01-01

Teacher cognition (Borg, 2015) of grammar instruction is a relatively new phenomenon that has yet to be explored in the Saudi context. While many studies have focused on the teaching of grammar in general (Ellis, 2006; Corzo, 2013; Braine, 2014), further research needs to be done - particularly when it comes to understanding teachers' beliefs of…

Delta's Key to the Next Generation TOEFL[R] Test: Essential Grammar for the iBT

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gallagher, Nancy

2012-01-01

Although the TOEFL iBT does not have a discrete grammar section, knowledge of English sentence structure is important throughout the test. Essential Grammar for the iBT reviews the skills that are fundamental to success on tests. Content includes noun and verb forms, clauses, agreement, parallel structure, punctuation, and much more. The book may…

A Portable Natural Language Interface.

DTIC Science & Technology

1987-09-01

regrets. - 27 - BIBLIOGRAPHY Bayer, Samuel. "A Theory of Linearization in Relational Grammar ," Senior essay, Yale University , 1984. Dyer, Michael. In... Grammar 1. Chicago: University Chicago Press, 1983. Rustin, R., ed., Natural Language Processing. New York: Algorithmics Press, 1973. Wasow, Tom...most notably, the theory of relational grammar developed by Perlmutter and his associates, and the theory of discourse developed by Barbara Grosz

Impact of Gadget Based Learning of Grammar in English at Standard II

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Singaravelu, G.

2014-01-01

The study enlightens the impact of Gadget Based Learning of English Grammar at standard II. Objectives of the study is to find out the learning problems of the students of standard II in Learning English Grammar in Shri Vani Vilas Middle School and to find whether there is any significant difference in achievement mean score between pre test of…

Le montage d'une grammaire seconde (The Construction of a Second Grammar)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Adamczewski, Henri

1975-01-01

Discusses the influence of modern linguistic research on foreign language instruction. Shows the role of grammar 1 in the acquisition of grammar 2, and specifically when French is 1 and English is 2. Considers that conscious, systematic knowledge of L2, learned through L1, is positive for second language acquisition. (Text is in French.) (TL)

Towards a Rationale for Research into Grammar Teaching in Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fontich, Xavier; Camps, Anna

2014-01-01

This article hopes to bring new insights to the debate about the effect of grammar knowledge on language use, especially writing. It raises the question of the need to look more closely at the following three questions: (1) What is the aim of grammar teaching?; (2) How capable are students of conceptualising about language and how is their…

Peer Interaction, Cognitive Conflict, and Anxiety on a Grammar Awareness Course for Language Teachers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Svalberg, Agneta Marie-Louise

2012-01-01

This study explored some MA students' perceptions of a Grammar Awareness course for language teachers. The aim was to understand how group tasks might help students build Grammar Awareness. Two cohorts of students were surveyed and interviewed. In this paper, the survey responses are discussed in some depth. While the first cohort was left to…

On the Richness of Grammar as an Analytical Lens in the Integrated Language Arts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Massey, Lance

2011-01-01

As a teacher of Bowling Green State University's English 3810, Grammar and Writing, the author is charged with teaching future language arts teachers how to teach grammar so that it actually helps their students become better writers and communicators. Because such teaching rejects the ineffective but time-honored drill-it-and-kill-it approach, in…

"Something for Linguists": On-The-Fly Grammar Instruction in a Dutch as Foreign Language Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moore, Leslie C.; Park, Seo Hyun

2014-01-01

This article examines grammar instruction produced on the fly by a teacher in response to students' questions in a Dutch as foreign language classroom. Such sequences merit attention because they present teachers with the opportunity and the challenge to provide unplanned instruction on an aspect of grammar to which a student has shown herself to…

Effectiveness of Intervention for Grammar in School-Aged Children with Primary Language Impairments: A Review of the Evidence

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ebbels, Susan

2014-01-01

This article summarizes the evidence as regards the effectiveness of therapy for grammar for school-aged children with language impairments. I first review studies focusing on specific areas of grammar (both expressive and receptive targets) and then studies aiming to improve language more generally, several of which focus more on the…

The Histories and Mysteries of Grammar Instruction: Supporting Elementary Teachers in the Time of the Common Core

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gartland, Lauren B.; Smolkin, Laura B.

2016-01-01

The reemergence of grammar instruction in the Common Core State Standards has likely left teachers confused. On the one hand, they have been told repeatedly that grammar instruction does not improve student outcomes, and can, in fact, be "harmful" to students. However, on the other hand, many Anglophone countries, including the United…

Comments on Skinner's grammar

PubMed Central

Mabry, John H.

1993-01-01

The strong tradition of “school room” grammars may have had a negative influence on the reception given a functional analysis of verbal behavior, both within and without the field of behavior analysis. Some of the failings of those traditional grammars, and their largely prescriptive nature were outlined through reference to other critics, and conflicting views. Skinner's own treatment of grammatical issues was presented, emphasizing his view of a functional unit and his use of the autoclitic and intraverbal functions to describe alternatives to a formal or structural analysis. Finally, the relevance of stimulus control variables to some recurring questions about verbal behavior and, specifically grammar, were mentioned. PMID:22477082

Attribute And-Or Grammar for Joint Parsing of Human Pose, Parts and Attributes.

PubMed

Park, Seyoung; Nie, Xiaohan; Zhu, Song-Chun

2017-07-25

This paper presents an attribute and-or grammar (A-AOG) model for jointly inferring human body pose and human attributes in a parse graph with attributes augmented to nodes in the hierarchical representation. In contrast to other popular methods in the current literature that train separate classifiers for poses and individual attributes, our method explicitly represents the decomposition and articulation of body parts, and account for the correlations between poses and attributes. The A-AOG model is an amalgamation of three traditional grammar formulations: (i)Phrase structure grammar representing the hierarchical decomposition of the human body from whole to parts; (ii)Dependency grammar modeling the geometric articulation by a kinematic graph of the body pose; and (iii)Attribute grammar accounting for the compatibility relations between different parts in the hierarchy so that their appearances follow a consistent style. The parse graph outputs human detection, pose estimation, and attribute prediction simultaneously, which are intuitive and interpretable. We conduct experiments on two tasks on two datasets, and experimental results demonstrate the advantage of joint modeling in comparison with computing poses and attributes independently. Furthermore, our model obtains better performance over existing methods for both pose estimation and attribute prediction tasks.

Effect of chunk strength on the performance of children with developmental dyslexia on artificial grammar learning task may be related to complexity.

PubMed

Schiff, Rachel; Katan, Pesia; Sasson, Ayelet; Kahta, Shani

2017-07-01

There's a long held view that chunks play a crucial role in artificial grammar learning performance. We compared chunk strength influences on performance, in high and low topological entropy (a measure of complexity) grammar systems, with dyslexic children, age-matched and reading-level-matched control participants. Findings show that age-matched control participants' performance reflected equivalent influence of chunk strength in the two topological entropy conditions, as typically found in artificial grammar learning experiments. By contrast, dyslexic children and reading-level-matched controls' performance reflected knowledge of chunk strength only under the low topological entropy condition. In the low topological entropy grammar system, they appeared completely unable to utilize chunk strength to make appropriate test item selections. In line with previous research, this study suggests that for typically developing children, it is the chunks that are attended during artificial grammar learning and create a foundation on which implicit associative learning mechanisms operate, and these chunks are unitized to different strengths. However, for children with dyslexia, it is complexity that may influence the subsequent memorability of chunks, independently of their strength.

Unfold the Veil Covering News--A Case Study of English Language and Ideology in Both American and Chinese Press

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gao, Li; You, Qi-Dongmeng

2013-01-01

By taking Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) as research approach, this study analyzes and discusses two news reports related to the event that a Uyghur man was sentenced to death by the Intermediate People's Court in Xinjiang, a western province of China. Both news reports on that event are taken respectively from two newspapers published in…

Logos Announced the Light of Salvation: Interpreting How John Presented His Message in John 1:1-18, According to Functional Grammar

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pollinger, Seth

2014-01-01

This study of John 1:1-18 describes how John (the speaker) presented his message to his audience within their activity of verbal communication. By focusing on verbal meaning, this interpretation analyzes how John presented and expressed his meanings through language by interpreting this text based on the seamless interrelation between John's…

Improving Automated Lexical and Discourse Analysis of Online Chat Dialog

DTIC Science & Technology

2007-09-01

include spelling- and grammar-checking on our word processing software; voice-recognition in our automobiles; and telephone-based conversational agents ...conversational agents can help customers make purchases on-line [3]. In addition, discourse analyzers can automatically separate multiple, interleaved...telephone-based conversational agent needs to know if it was asked a question or tasked to do something. Indeed, Stolcke et al demonstrated that

The role of language in learning physics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Brookes, David T.

Many studies in PER suggest that language poses a serious difficulty for students learning physics. These difficulties are mostly attributed to misunderstanding of specialized terminology. This terminology often assigns new meanings to everyday terms used to describe physical models and phenomena. In this dissertation I present a novel approach to analyzing of the role of language in learning physics. This approach is based on the analysis of the historical development of physics ideas, the language of modern physicists, and students' difficulties in the areas of quantum mechanics, classical mechanics, and thermodynamics. These data are analyzed using linguistic tools borrowed from cognitive linguistics and systemic functional grammar. Specifically, I combine the idea of conceptual metaphor and grammar to build a theoretical framework that accounts for: (1) the role and function that language serves for physicists when they speak and reason about physical ideas and phenomena, (2) specific features of students' reasoning and difficulties that may be related to or derived from language that students read or hear. The theoretical framework is developed using the methodology of a grounded theoretical approach. The theoretical framework allows us to make predictions about the relationship between student discourse and their conceptual and problem solving difficulties. Tests of the theoretical framework are presented in the context of "heat" in thermodynamics and "force" in dynamics. In each case the language that students use to reason about the concepts of "heat" and "force" is analyzed using the theoretical framework. The results of this analysis show that language is very important in students' learning. In particular, students are (1) using features of physicists' conceptual metaphors to reason about physical phenomena, often overextending and misapplying these features, (2) drawing cues from the grammar of physicists' speech and writing to categorize physics concepts; this categorization of physics concepts plays a key role in students' ability to solve physics problems. In summary, I present a theoretical framework that provides a possible explanation of the role that language plays in learning physics. The framework also attempts to account for how and why physicists' language influences students in the way that it does.

How do verbal short-term memory and working memory relate to the acquisition of vocabulary and grammar? A comparison between first and second language learners.

PubMed

Verhagen, Josje; Leseman, Paul

2016-01-01

Previous studies show that verbal short-term memory (VSTM) is related to vocabulary learning, whereas verbal working memory (VWM) is related to grammar learning in children learning a second language (L2) in the classroom. In this study, we investigated whether the same relationships apply to children learning an L2 in a naturalistic setting and to monolingual children. We also investigated whether relationships with verbal memory differ depending on the type of grammar skill investigated (i.e., morphology vs. syntax). Participants were 63 Turkish children who learned Dutch as an L2 and 45 Dutch monolingual children (mean age = 5 years). Children completed a series of VSTM and VWM tasks, a Dutch vocabulary task, and a Dutch grammar task. A confirmatory factor analysis showed that VSTM and VWM represented two separate latent factors in both groups. Structural equation modeling showed that VSTM, treated as a latent factor, significantly predicted vocabulary and grammar. VWM, treated as a latent factor, predicted only grammar. Both memory factors were significantly related to the acquisition of morphology and syntax. There were no differences between the two groups. These results show that (a) VSTM and VWM are differentially associated with language learning and (b) the same memory mechanisms are employed for learning vocabulary and grammar in L1 children and in L2 children who learn their L2 naturalistically. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Project for a Contrastive Analysis of the Sound Systems, Grammars and Lexicons of Serbo-Croatian and English. Phase 1: Phonology and Grammar. Final Report.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Filipovic, Rudolf

This project provides descriptions of some points of contrast between Serbo-Croatian and English in the fields of phonology, grammar, and lexicon. The project concentrated particularly on the points showing difficulties for the English-speaking learner of Serbo-Croatian, thus forming the basis for development of teaching materials and guides for…

Nigel: A Systemic Grammar for Text Generation.

DTIC Science & Technology

1983-02-01

presumed. Basic references on the systemic framework include [Berry 75, Berry 77, Halliday 76a, Halliday 76b, Hudson 76, Halliday 81, de Joia 80...Edinburgh, 1979. [do Joia 80] de Joia , A., and A. Stanton, Terms in Systemic Linguistics, Batsford Academic and Educational, Ltd., London, 1980. -’C...1 A Grammar for Text Generation- -The Challenge ................................. 1 *1.2 A Grammar for Text Generation--The Design

Do Humans Really Learn A[superscript n] B[superscript n] Artificial Grammars from Exemplars?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hochmann, Jean-Remy; Azadpour, Mahan; Mehler, Jacques

2008-01-01

An important topic in the evolution of language is the kinds of grammars that can be computed by humans and other animals. Fitch and Hauser (F&H; 2004) approached this question by assessing the ability of different species to learn 2 grammars, (AB)[superscript n] and A[superscript n] B[superscript n]. A[superscript n] B[superscript n] was taken to…

The Case for a Realistic Beginning-Level Grammar Syllabus: The Round Peg in the Round Hole

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Heining-Boynton, Audrey L.

2010-01-01

The time has come to create a realistic grammar syllabus in the beginning language courses. Yet why do some in the profession insist that all grammar must be taught in the first year of language learning? Abundant data from decades of research on topics such as human memory, chunking, and second language acquisition exist that overwhelmingly…

A Comparative Study of the Use of Persian vs. English in Teaching English Grammar to Iranian Students in Junior High School

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mehrseresht, Kowsar; Gowhary, Habib; Azizifar, Akbar

2015-01-01

This study compared the relationship between the use of Persian vs. English in teaching English grammar to Iranian students and their achievement in learning English grammar. The participants of this study include 50 female students from a junior high school in Mehran. The researcher randomly selected 2 groups, one group was taught through the…

Bringing Fun and Meaning into Grammar Learning: A Case Study of a Secondary-Level EFL Class in Hong Kong

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hua, Congchao; Li, Bin

2015-01-01

Popular culture materials are generally believed to have positive effects on L2 learning. This study examined the effectiveness of popular culture materials in enhancing Hong Kong EFL students' grammar learning. In a quasi-experimental design, 20 secondary school students were taught grammar in two ways: with the use of popular culture materials,…

Let Me Try to Make It Clearer. Alternative Techniques for Teaching Traditional English Grammar to Learning Disabled Students in the University.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zink, Karl E.

A faculty member involved with the Higher Education for Learning Disabled Students (HELDS) project describes ways in which an English grammar course was modified to accommodate LD students. The course, designed to compensate for students' inadequacies in grammar, is described in terms of four phases: (1) the introductory period (in which LD…

Breakthroughs in Composition Instruction Methods without Evidence of Tangible Improvements in Students' Composition: When Will Change Come?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Walsh, S. M.

Throughout the early years of the twentieth century, literacy education was based on the solid understanding of grammar. Yet as early as 1923, empirical data indicated that the link between knowledge of grammar and correct use of English was tenuous at best. Despite formidable evidence, some educators still advocate the use of grammar as a…

Effect of Chunk Strength on the Performance of Children with Developmental Dyslexia on Artificial Grammar Learning Task May Be Related to Complexity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schiff, Rachel; Katan, Pesia; Sasson, Ayelet; Kahta, Shani

2017-01-01

There is a long held view that chunks play a crucial role in artificial grammar learning performance. We compared chunk strength influences on performance, in high and low topological entropy (a measure of complexity) grammar systems, with dyslexic children, age-matched and reading-level-matched control participants. Findings show that age-matched…

A Development System for Augmented Transition Network Grammars and a Large Grammar for Technical Prose. Technical Report No. 25.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mayer, John; Kieras, David E.

Using a system based on standard augmented transition network (ATN) parsing approach, this report describes a technique for the rapid development of natural language parsing, called High-Level Grammar Specification Language (HGSL). The first part of the report describes the syntax and semantics of HGSL and the network implementation of each of its…

L'Enseignement de la grammaire en langue etrangere: Contenus et processus (The Teaching of Grammar in a Foreign Language: Content and Process).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Calliabetsou, Penelope

A discussion, in French, of second language grammar instruction looks at the differences between a traditional linguistic approach to grammar learning, used less and less with the advent of communicative language teaching methods, and a sociolinguistic approach, which focuses more closely on the sociocultural context of functional variants of a…

Relations between EFL Teachers' Formal Knowledge of Grammar and Their In-Action Mental Models of Children's Minds and Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Haim, O.; Strauss, S.; Ravid, D.

2004-01-01

We studied the relations between English as a foreign language teachers' grammar knowledge and their in-action mental models (MMs) of children's minds and learning. The grammar knowledge we examined was English wh-constructions. A total of 74 teachers completed an assessment task and were classified to have deep, intermediate or shallow knowledge.…

Contradictory Information in the Input as the Cause of Multiple Grammars: Predictions for Bilingual Acquisition

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Unsworth, Sharon

2014-01-01

The central claim in Amaral and Roeper's (this issue; henceforth A&R) keynote article is that everyone is multilingual, whether they speak one or more languages. In a nutshell, the idea is that each speaker has multiple grammars or "sub-sets of rules (or sub-grammars) that co-exist". Thus, rather than positing complex rules to…

Unpacking the Discrepancy between Learner and Teacher Beliefs: What Should Be the Role of Grammar in Language Classes?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hos, Rabia; Kekec, Mustafa

2015-01-01

Learner and teacher beliefs play an important role in second language (L2) learning. Furthermore, the role of grammar instruction and error correction in the L2 classroom is a topic that is still debated in the literature. This study explored the beliefs of EFL learners and teachers regarding the controversial role of grammar instruction and error…

The relationship between strategic control and conscious structural knowledge in artificial grammar learning.

PubMed

Norman, Elisabeth; Scott, Ryan B; Price, Mark C; Dienes, Zoltan

2016-05-01

We address Jacoby's (1991) proposal that strategic control over knowledge requires conscious awareness of that knowledge. In a two-grammar artificial grammar learning experiment all participants were trained on two grammars, consisting of a regularity in letter sequences, while two other dimensions (colours and fonts) varied randomly. Strategic control was measured as the ability to selectively apply the grammars during classification. For each classification, participants also made a combined judgement of (a) decision strategy and (b) relevant stimulus dimension. Strategic control was found for all types of decision strategy, including trials where participants claimed to lack conscious structural knowledge. However, strong evidence of strategic control only occurred when participants knew or guessed that the letter dimension was relevant, suggesting that strategic control might be associated with - or even causally requires - global awareness of the nature of the rules even though it does not require detailed knowledge of their content. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Production of Supra-regular Spatial Sequences by Macaque Monkeys.

PubMed

Jiang, Xinjian; Long, Tenghai; Cao, Weicong; Li, Junru; Dehaene, Stanislas; Wang, Liping

2018-06-18

Understanding and producing embedded sequences in language, music, or mathematics, is a central characteristic of our species. These domains are hypothesized to involve a human-specific competence for supra-regular grammars, which can generate embedded sequences that go beyond the regular sequences engendered by finite-state automata. However, is this capacity truly unique to humans? Using a production task, we show that macaque monkeys can be trained to produce time-symmetrical embedded spatial sequences whose formal description requires supra-regular grammars or, equivalently, a push-down stack automaton. Monkeys spontaneously generalized the learned grammar to novel sequences, including longer ones, and could generate hierarchical sequences formed by an embedding of two levels of abstract rules. Compared to monkeys, however, preschool children learned the grammars much faster using a chunking strategy. While supra-regular grammars are accessible to nonhuman primates through extensive training, human uniqueness may lie in the speed and learning strategy with which they are acquired. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Reducing the worst case running times of a family of RNA and CFG problems, using Valiant's approach.

PubMed

Zakov, Shay; Tsur, Dekel; Ziv-Ukelson, Michal

2011-08-18

RNA secondary structure prediction is a mainstream bioinformatic domain, and is key to computational analysis of functional RNA. In more than 30 years, much research has been devoted to defining different variants of RNA structure prediction problems, and to developing techniques for improving prediction quality. Nevertheless, most of the algorithms in this field follow a similar dynamic programming approach as that presented by Nussinov and Jacobson in the late 70's, which typically yields cubic worst case running time algorithms. Recently, some algorithmic approaches were applied to improve the complexity of these algorithms, motivated by new discoveries in the RNA domain and by the need to efficiently analyze the increasing amount of accumulated genome-wide data. We study Valiant's classical algorithm for Context Free Grammar recognition in sub-cubic time, and extract features that are common to problems on which Valiant's approach can be applied. Based on this, we describe several problem templates, and formulate generic algorithms that use Valiant's technique and can be applied to all problems which abide by these templates, including many problems within the world of RNA Secondary Structures and Context Free Grammars. The algorithms presented in this paper improve the theoretical asymptotic worst case running time bounds for a large family of important problems. It is also possible that the suggested techniques could be applied to yield a practical speedup for these problems. For some of the problems (such as computing the RNA partition function and base-pair binding probabilities), the presented techniques are the only ones which are currently known for reducing the asymptotic running time bounds of the standard algorithms.

Reducing the worst case running times of a family of RNA and CFG problems, using Valiant's approach

PubMed Central

2011-01-01

Background RNA secondary structure prediction is a mainstream bioinformatic domain, and is key to computational analysis of functional RNA. In more than 30 years, much research has been devoted to defining different variants of RNA structure prediction problems, and to developing techniques for improving prediction quality. Nevertheless, most of the algorithms in this field follow a similar dynamic programming approach as that presented by Nussinov and Jacobson in the late 70's, which typically yields cubic worst case running time algorithms. Recently, some algorithmic approaches were applied to improve the complexity of these algorithms, motivated by new discoveries in the RNA domain and by the need to efficiently analyze the increasing amount of accumulated genome-wide data. Results We study Valiant's classical algorithm for Context Free Grammar recognition in sub-cubic time, and extract features that are common to problems on which Valiant's approach can be applied. Based on this, we describe several problem templates, and formulate generic algorithms that use Valiant's technique and can be applied to all problems which abide by these templates, including many problems within the world of RNA Secondary Structures and Context Free Grammars. Conclusions The algorithms presented in this paper improve the theoretical asymptotic worst case running time bounds for a large family of important problems. It is also possible that the suggested techniques could be applied to yield a practical speedup for these problems. For some of the problems (such as computing the RNA partition function and base-pair binding probabilities), the presented techniques are the only ones which are currently known for reducing the asymptotic running time bounds of the standard algorithms. PMID:21851589

Marrying Form and Function: A Place for Grammar and Total Target Language in the Secondary Modern Foreign Languages Classroom. Occasional Paper.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hogg, Ivy

This paper examines the possible role of grammar throughout Key Stages 3 and 4 in the modern language curriculum where communication is the central tenet. It also discusses how total or virtually total use of target language (German) in the classroom can help deal with the dichotomy of grammar versus communication and bring about an integrated…

Searching for Ways with Grammar: Reflections on Keynotes by Debra Myhill and Wayne Sawyer

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Evans, Jenni

2012-01-01

In this article, the author reflects on keynotes by Debra Myhill and Wayne Sawyer in a search for ways with grammar. One of the keynote speakers, Debra Myhill, shared her research into teaching grammar that she had conducted in the UK. Myhill had asked a sample of teachers to follow a specified unit plan and had conducted pre- and post-testing to…

Choosing Tense in English.

DTIC Science & Technology

1984-11-01

about the length of duration before or after the zero point". The generalization about snow being white holds at PRESENT. If the generic ...tense, serial tense, system network, systemic grammar, tense grammar, tense semantics, text generation , text production, verbal group * 4- •S 20...purposeful way, as a subprocess of the process of generating text. First, a systemic grammar of English tense (based on work by M A.K. Halliday) is

Analyse des erreurs et grammaire generative: La syntaxe de l'interrogation en francais (Error Analysis and Generative Grammar: The Syntax of Interrogation in French).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Py, Bernard

A progress report is presented of a study which applies a system of generative grammar to error analysis. The objective of the study was to reconstruct the grammar of students' interlanguage, using a systematic analysis of errors. (Interlanguage refers to the linguistic competence of a student who possesses a relatively systematic body of rules,…

Learning of pitch and time structures in an artificial grammar setting.

PubMed

Prince, Jon B; Stevens, Catherine J; Jones, Mari Riess; Tillmann, Barbara

2018-04-12

Despite the empirical evidence for the power of the cognitive capacity of implicit learning of structures and regularities in several modalities and materials, it remains controversial whether implicit learning extends to the learning of temporal structures and regularities. We investigated whether (a) an artificial grammar can be learned equally well when expressed in duration sequences as when expressed in pitch sequences, (b) learning of the artificial grammar in either duration or pitch (as the primary dimension) sequences can be influenced by the properties of the secondary dimension (invariant vs. randomized), and (c) learning can be boosted when the artificial grammar is expressed in both pitch and duration. After an exposure phase with grammatical sequences, learning in a subsequent test phase was assessed in a grammaticality judgment task. Participants in both the pitch and duration conditions showed incidental (not fully implicit) learning of the artificial grammar when the secondary dimension was invariant, but randomizing the pitch sequence prevented learning of the artificial grammar in duration sequences. Expressing the artificial grammar in both pitch and duration resulted in disproportionately better performance, suggesting an interaction between the learning of pitch and temporal structure. The findings are relevant to research investigating the learning of temporal structures and the learning of structures presented simultaneously in 2 dimensions (e.g., space and time, space and objects). By investigating learning, the findings provide further insight into the potential specificity of pitch and time processing, and their integrated versus independent processing, as previously debated in music cognition research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Using an Integrative Approach To Teach Hebrew Grammar in an Elementary Immersion Class.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Eckstein, Peter

The 12-week program described here was designed to improve a Hebrew language immersion class' ability to correctly use the simple past and present tenses. The target group was a sixth-grade class that achieved a 65.68 percent error-free rate on a pre-test; the project's objective was to achieve 90 percent error free tests, using student…

The Practice of "Grammar Naziness" on Facebook in Relation to Generating Grammar Learning: A Motivation or Demotivation in Updating Statuses in English on Facebook

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Amin, Noraziah Mohd; Abdul Rahman, Noor Azam; Sharipudin, Mohamad-Noor; Abu Bakar, Mohd Saifulnizam

2016-01-01

It is common for learners of English to make grammatical errors in their English Facebook posts that can be noticeable on their walls, which this perhaps as a result, influences the other Facebook users who know about the language to perform the unofficial duty as grammar Nazis and correct the errors. Thus, this research aims to examine if Malay…

Context-free parsing with connectionist networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fanty, M. A.

1986-08-01

This paper presents a simple algorithm which converts any context-free grammar into a connectionist network which parses strings (of arbitrary but fixed maximum length) in the language defined by that grammar. The network is fast, O(n), and deterministicd. It consists of binary units which compute a simple function of their input. When the grammar is put in Chomsky normal form, O(n3) units needed to parse inputs of length up to n.

The Effectiveness of Using Brainstorming Strategy in the Development of Academic Achievement of Sixth Grade Students in English Grammar at Public Schools in Jordan

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Malkawi, Nibal Abdelkarim Mousa; Smadi, Mona

2018-01-01

The study aims to identify the effect of using brainstorming method in the teaching of English grammar; to improve the level of sixth grade students in English grammar at public schools in Jordan. The study population consisted of all sixth grade students of both sexes. The sample of the study was chosen in the random stratified manner,…

A technique for solving constraint satisfaction problems using Prolog's definite clause grammars

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Nachtsheim, Philip R.

1988-01-01

A new technique for solving constraint satisfaction problems using Prolog's definite clause grammars is presented. It exploits the fact that the grammar rule notation can be viewed as a state exchange notation. The novel feature of the technique is that it can perform informed as well as blind search. It provides the Prolog programmer with a new technique for application to a wide range of design, scheduling, and planning problems.

Phenomenologies of the akratic self: masculinity, regrets, and HIV among men on methadone.

PubMed

Fontdevila, Jorge

2006-07-01

This study explores the motivational bargaining processes that constitute an "act" of heterosexual HIV risk-taking by focusing on the narrative viewpoint of two men in methadone maintenance treatment programs in the Harlem section of New York City. These men reported sexual episodes with complex motivational "event grammars" that were analyzed using qualitative methods. Building on the concept of akrasia (failure to convert intentions into action), I argue that HIV risky heterosex results from temporal displacements of instrumental rationality by two other equally relevant orientations of sexual action, namely, affectual and normative. I conclude that sexual risk occurs in the context of emotions and normative presentations of the masculine self. Consequently, a man's risk of loosing footing or consistent face vis-à-vis his female sex partner, and not the risks of HIV, becomes a priority of the sexual interaction. Sexuality is at its core social and, hence, subject to more powerful forces than personal safety or behaviorist reward.

Parallelized reliability estimation of reconfigurable computer networks

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Nicol, David M.; Das, Subhendu; Palumbo, Dan

1990-01-01

A parallelized system, ASSURE, for computing the reliability of embedded avionics flight control systems which are able to reconfigure themselves in the event of failure is described. ASSURE accepts a grammar that describes a reliability semi-Markov state-space. From this it creates a parallel program that simultaneously generates and analyzes the state-space, placing upper and lower bounds on the probability of system failure. ASSURE is implemented on a 32-node Intel iPSC/860, and has achieved high processor efficiencies on real problems. Through a combination of improved algorithms, exploitation of parallelism, and use of an advanced microprocessor architecture, ASSURE has reduced the execution time on substantial problems by a factor of one thousand over previous workstation implementations. Furthermore, ASSURE's parallel execution rate on the iPSC/860 is an order of magnitude faster than its serial execution rate on a Cray-2 supercomputer. While dynamic load balancing is necessary for ASSURE's good performance, it is needed only infrequently; the particular method of load balancing used does not substantially affect performance.

Functionally Equivalent Variants in a Non-standard Variety and Their Implications for Universal Grammar: A Spontaneous Speech Corpus.

PubMed

Leivada, Evelina; Papadopoulou, Elena; Pavlou, Natalia

2017-01-01

Findings from the field of experimental linguistics have shown that a native speaker may judge a variant that is part of her grammar as unacceptable, but still use it productively in spontaneous speech. The process of eliciting acceptability judgments from speakers of non-standard languages is sometimes clouded by factors akin to prescriptive notions of grammatical correctness. It has been argued that standardization enhances the ability to make clear-cut judgments, while non-standardization may result to grammatical hybridity, often manifested in the form of functionally equivalent variants in the repertoire of a single speaker. Recognizing the importance of working with corpora of spontaneous speech, this work investigates patterns of variation in the spontaneous production of five neurotypical, adult speakers of a non-standard variety in terms of three variants, each targeting one level of linguistic analysis: syntax, morphology, and phonology. The results reveal the existence of functionally equivalent variants across speakers and levels of analysis. We first discuss these findings in relation to the notions of competing, mixed, and fused grammars, and then we flesh out the implications that different values of the same variant carry for parametric approaches to Universal Grammar. We observe that intraspeaker realizations of different values of the same variant within the same syntactic environment are incompatible with the 'triggering-a-single-value' approach of parametric models, but we argue that they are compatible with the concept of Universal Grammar itself. Since the analysis of these variants is ultimately a way of investigating the status of Universal Grammar primitives, we conclude that claims about the alleged unfalsifiability of (the contents of) Universal Grammar are unfounded.

Functionally Equivalent Variants in a Non-standard Variety and Their Implications for Universal Grammar: A Spontaneous Speech Corpus

PubMed Central

Leivada, Evelina; Papadopoulou, Elena; Pavlou, Natalia

2017-01-01

Findings from the field of experimental linguistics have shown that a native speaker may judge a variant that is part of her grammar as unacceptable, but still use it productively in spontaneous speech. The process of eliciting acceptability judgments from speakers of non-standard languages is sometimes clouded by factors akin to prescriptive notions of grammatical correctness. It has been argued that standardization enhances the ability to make clear-cut judgments, while non-standardization may result to grammatical hybridity, often manifested in the form of functionally equivalent variants in the repertoire of a single speaker. Recognizing the importance of working with corpora of spontaneous speech, this work investigates patterns of variation in the spontaneous production of five neurotypical, adult speakers of a non-standard variety in terms of three variants, each targeting one level of linguistic analysis: syntax, morphology, and phonology. The results reveal the existence of functionally equivalent variants across speakers and levels of analysis. We first discuss these findings in relation to the notions of competing, mixed, and fused grammars, and then we flesh out the implications that different values of the same variant carry for parametric approaches to Universal Grammar. We observe that intraspeaker realizations of different values of the same variant within the same syntactic environment are incompatible with the ‘triggering-a-single-value’ approach of parametric models, but we argue that they are compatible with the concept of Universal Grammar itself. Since the analysis of these variants is ultimately a way of investigating the status of Universal Grammar primitives, we conclude that claims about the alleged unfalsifiability of (the contents of) Universal Grammar are unfounded. PMID:28790953

The Linguistic Core Approach to StructuredTranslation and Analysis of Low Resource Languages

DTIC Science & Technology

2017-09-02

grammars from no training data and partial training data (as given by GFL). We are now anno - tating GFL for English, Portuguese, Chinese and...translation. In Proc. EMNLP, 2014. [20] F. Drewes, H.- J . Kreowski, and A. Habel. Hyperedge replacement graph grammars. Handbook of Graph Grammars, 1:95–162...tory, Jena, 2015. [41] B. Jones, J . Andreas, D. Bauer, K-M. Hermann, and K. Knight. Semantics- based machine translation with hyperedge replacement

Design, Implementation and Testing of a Common Data Model Supporting Autonomous Vehicle Compatibility and Interoperability

DTIC Science & Technology

2006-09-01

is that it is universally applicable. That is, it can be used to parse an instance of any Chomsky Normal Form context-free grammar . This relative... Chomsky -Normal-Form grammar corresponding to the vehicle-specific data format, use of the Cocke-Younger- Kasami algorithm to generate a parse tree...05). The productions of a Chomsky Normal Form context-free grammar have three significant characteristics: • There are no useless symbols (i.e

Inference for Transition Network Grammars,

DTIC Science & Technology

1976-01-01

If the arc Is followed. language L(G) is said to be structurally complete if The power of an augmented transition network (Am) is each rewriting rule ...Clearly, a context-sensitive grammar can be represented as a context—free grarmar plus a set of transformationDbbbbb Eabbbbbb Dbb~~bb Ebbbbbb rules ...are the foun— as a CFG (base) and a set of transformationa l rules . datIons of grammars of different complexities. The The CSL Is obtained by appl

When global structure "Explains Away" local grammar: a Bayesian account of rule-induction in tone sequences.

PubMed

Dawson, Colin; Gerken, Louann

2011-09-01

While many constraints on learning must be relatively experience-independent, past experience provides a rich source of guidance for subsequent learning. Discovering structure in some domain can inform a learner's future hypotheses about that domain. If a general property accounts for particular sub-patterns, a rational learner should not stipulate separate explanations for each detail without additional evidence, as the general structure has "explained away" the original evidence. In a grammar-learning experiment using tone sequences, manipulating learners' prior exposure to a tone environment affects their sensitivity to the grammar-defining feature, in this case consecutive repeated tones. Grammar-learning performance is worse if context melodies are "smooth" -- when small intervals occur more than large ones -- as Smoothness is a general property accounting for a high rate of repetition. We present an idealized Bayesian model as a "best case" benchmark for learning repetition grammars. When context melodies are Smooth, the model places greater weight on the small-interval constraint, and does not learn the repetition rule as well as when context melodies are not Smooth, paralleling the human learners. These findings support an account of abstract grammar-induction in which learners rationally assess the statistical evidence for underlying structure based on a generative model of the environment. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A graph grammar approach to artificial life.

PubMed

Kniemeyer, Ole; Buck-Sorlin, Gerhard H; Kurth, Winfried

2004-01-01

We present the high-level language of relational growth grammars (RGGs) as a formalism designed for the specification of ALife models. RGGs can be seen as an extension of the well-known parametric Lindenmayer systems and contain rule-based, procedural, and object-oriented features. They are defined as rewriting systems operating on graphs with the edges coming from a set of user-defined relations, whereas the nodes can be associated with objects. We demonstrate their ability to represent genes, regulatory networks of metabolites, and morphologically structured organisms, as well as developmental aspects of these entities, in a common formal framework. Mutation, crossing over, selection, and the dynamics of a network of gene regulation can all be represented with simple graph rewriting rules. This is demonstrated in some detail on the classical example of Dawkins' biomorphs and the ABC model of flower morphogenesis: other applications are briefly sketched. An interactive program was implemented, enabling the execution of the formalism and the visualization of the results.

Grammar Is a System That Characterizes Talk in Interaction

PubMed Central

Ginzburg, Jonathan; Poesio, Massimo

2016-01-01

Much of contemporary mainstream formal grammar theory is unable to provide analyses for language as it occurs in actual spoken interaction. Its analyses are developed for a cleaned up version of language which omits the disfluencies, non-sentential utterances, gestures, and many other phenomena that are ubiquitous in spoken language. Using evidence from linguistics, conversation analysis, multimodal communication, psychology, language acquisition, and neuroscience, we show these aspects of language use are rule governed in much the same way as phenomena captured by conventional grammars. Furthermore, we argue that over the past few years some of the tools required to provide a precise characterizations of such phenomena have begun to emerge in theoretical and computational linguistics; hence, there is no reason for treating them as “second class citizens” other than pre-theoretical assumptions about what should fall under the purview of grammar. Finally, we suggest that grammar formalisms covering such phenomena would provide a better foundation not just for linguistic analysis of face-to-face interaction, but also for sister disciplines, such as research on spoken dialogue systems and/or psychological work on language acquisition. PMID:28066279

A python tool for the implementation of domain-specific languages

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dejanović, Igor; Vaderna, Renata; Milosavljević, Gordana; Simić, Miloš; Vuković, Željko

2017-07-01

In this paper we describe textX, a meta-language and a tool for building Domain-Specific Languages. It is implemented in Python using Arpeggio PEG (Parsing Expression Grammar) parser library. From a single language description (grammar) textX will build a parser and a meta-model (a.k.a. abstract syntax) of the language. The parser is used to parse textual representations of models conforming to the meta-model. As a result of parsing, a Python object graph will be automatically created. The structure of the object graph will conform to the meta-model defined by the grammar. This approach frees a developer from the need to manually analyse a parse tree and transform it to other suitable representation. The textX library is independent of any integrated development environment and can be easily integrated in any Python project. The textX tool works as a grammar interpreter. The parser is configured at run-time using the grammar. The textX tool is a free and open-source project available at GitHub.

Terminator Detection by Support Vector Machine Utilizing aStochastic Context-Free Grammar

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Francis-Lyon, Patricia; Cristianini, Nello; Holbrook, Stephen

2006-12-30

A 2-stage detector was designed to find rho-independent transcription terminators in the Escherichia coli genome. The detector includes a Stochastic Context Free Grammar (SCFG) component and a Support Vector Machine (SVM) component. To find terminators, the SCFG searches the intergenic regions of nucleotide sequence for local matches to a terminator grammar that was designed and trained utilizing examples of known terminators. The grammar selects sequences that are the best candidates for terminators and assigns them a prefix, stem-loop, suffix structure using the Cocke-Younger-Kasaami (CYK) algorithm, modified to incorporate energy affects of base pairing. The parameters from this inferred structure aremore » passed to the SVM classifier, which distinguishes terminators from non-terminators that score high according to the terminator grammar. The SVM was trained with negative examples drawn from intergenic sequences that include both featureless and RNA gene regions (which were assigned prefix, stem-loop, suffix structure by the SCFG), so that it successfully distinguishes terminators from either of these. The classifier was found to be 96.4% successful during testing.« less

An Experimental Study of Cyber Face-to-Face vs. Cyber Text-Based English Tutorial Programs for Low-Achieving University Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wu, Ejean; Lin, Wen-Chuan; Yang, Shu Ching

2013-01-01

This study examines the effects of two types of e-tutoring interventions (text-based vs. face-to-face videoconferencing, TB vs. F2F) on the grammar performance and motivation of low-achieving students. The study investigates the patterns of interaction between tutors and students in both platforms, including the manner in which tutors and students…

A Comparison Study of the Effects of a Story-based Video Instructional Package Versus a Text-based Instructional Package in the Intermediate-level Foreign Language Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Herron, Carol; York, Holly; Corrie, Cathleen; Cole, Steven P.

2006-01-01

This study compared a story-based video instructional package, with a feature-length film as its focus, to a text-based program. It explored the effectiveness of each approach to enhance the listening and grammar performances of intermediate-level college French students. Twenty-seven students at two institutions participated. A pretest-posttest…

Closing the Books on Alchemy.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kolln, Martha

1981-01-01

Finds serious flaws in the research asserting the uselessness of teaching grammar to composition classes. Proposes that writing teachers acknowledge the presence and importance of grammar in the writing class. (RL)

The Effect of Input Device on User Performance With a Menu-Based Natural Language Interface

DTIC Science & Technology

1988-01-01

Texas. The experiment was conducted and the data were analyzed by Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University human factors engineexing personnel...comments. Thanks to Dr. William Fisher for his help in the parsing of the grammar used in the MBNL interface prototype, and to Mr. Ken Stevenson for...natural language instructions to accomplish particular tasks (Bobrow & Collins, 1975; Brown, Burton, & Bell, 1975; Ford, 1981; Green, Wolf, Chomsky

Design and Implementation of a Pretty Printer for the Functional Specification Language SPEC

DTIC Science & Technology

1988-06-01

language independent pretty printer using Kodiyak and attribute grammars. These general guidelines are a direct result of the insight gained from the...outlined. The final subject in this chapter is the general and specific rules for the pretty printer. A user of the pretty printer code needs only a working...an extension of a context-free grammar whose generated language includes syntax and semantics. A context-free grammar (CFG) is a four tuple G (N,T, P ,S

The Development of Bilingual Narrative Retelling Among Spanish-English Dual Language Learners Over Two Years.

PubMed

Lucero, Audrey

2018-05-25

This exploratory study investigates the development of oral narrative retell proficiency among Spanish-English emergent bilingual children longitudinally from kindergarten to second grade in Spanish and English as they learned literacy in the 2 languages concurrently. Oral narrative retell assessments were conducted with children who spoke Spanish at home and were enrolled in a dual language immersion program (N = 12) in the spring of kindergarten and second grade. Retells were transcribed and coded for vocabulary and grammar at the microlevel (Miller, 2012) and story structure at the macrolevel (Heilmann, Miller, Nockerts, & Dunaway, 2010). In microstructure paired-sample t tests, children showed significant improvements in vocabulary in both languages (Spanish total number of words η2 = .43, Spanish number of different words η2 = .44, English total number of words η2 = .61, English number of different words η2 = .62) but not grammar by second grade. At the macrostructure level, children showed significantly higher performance in English only (English narrative scoring scheme η2 = .47). The finding that children significantly improved in vocabulary in both languages but in overall story structure only in English suggests that discourse skills were being facilitated in English whereas Spanish discourse development may have stagnated even within a dual language immersion program. Results contribute to what is currently known about bilingual oral narrative development among young Spanish speakers enrolled in such programs and can inform assessment and instructional decisions.

Grammar Predicts Procedural Learning and Consolidation Deficits in Children with Specific Language Impairment

PubMed Central

Hedenius, Martina; Persson, Jonas; Tremblay, Antoine; Adi-Japha, Esther; Veríssimo, João; Dye, Cristina D.; Alm, Per; Jennische, Margareta; Tomblin, J. Bruce; Ullman, Michael T.

2011-01-01

The Procedural Deficit Hypothesis (PDH) posits that Specific Language Impairment (SLI) can be largely explained by abnormalities of brain structures that subserve procedural memory. The PDH predicts impairments of procedural memory itself, and that such impairments underlie the grammatical deficits observed in the disorder. Previous studies have indeed reported procedural learning impairments in SLI, and have found that these are associated with grammatical difficulties. The present study extends this research by examining the consolidation and longer-term procedural sequence learning in children with SLI. The Alternating Serial Reaction Time (ASRT) task was given to children with SLI and typically-developing (TD) children in an initial learning session and an average of three days later to test for consolidation and longer-term learning. Although both groups showed evidence of initial sequence learning, only the TD children showed clear signs of consolidation, even though the two groups did not differ in longer-term learning. When the children were re-categorized on the basis of grammar deficits rather than broader language deficits, a clearer pattern emerged. Whereas both the grammar impaired and normal grammar groups showed evidence of initial sequence learning, only those with normal grammar showed consolidation and longer-term learning. Indeed, the grammar-impaired group appeared to lose any sequence knowledge gained during the initial testing session. These findings held even when controlling for vocabulary or a broad non-grammatical language measure, neither of which were associated with procedural memory. When grammar was examined as a continuous variable over all children, the same relationships between procedural memory and grammar, but not vocabulary or the broader language measure, were observed. Overall, the findings support and further specify the PDH. They suggest that consolidation and longer-term procedural learning are impaired in SLI, but that these impairments are specifically tied to the grammatical deficits in the disorder. The possibility that consolidation and longer-term learning are problematic in the disorder suggests a locus of potential study for therapeutic approaches. In sum, this study clarifies our understanding of the underlying deficits in SLI, and suggests avenues for further research. PMID:21840165

Integrated, Not Isolated: Defining Typological Proximity in an Integrated Multilingual Architecture

PubMed Central

Putnam, Michael T.; Carlson, Matthew; Reitter, David

2018-01-01

On the surface, bi- and multilingualism would seem to be an ideal context for exploring questions of typological proximity. The obvious intuition is that the more closely related two languages are, the easier it should be to implement the two languages in one mind. This is the starting point adopted here, but we immediately run into the difficulty that the overwhelming majority of cognitive, computational, and linguistic research on bi- and multilingualism exhibits a monolingual bias (i.e., where monolingual grammars are used as the standard of comparison for outputs from bilingual grammars). The primary questions so far have focused on how bilinguals balance and switch between their two languages, but our perspective on typology leads us to consider the nature of bi- and multi-lingual systems as a whole. Following an initial proposal from Hsin (2014), we conjecture that bilingual grammars are neither isolated, nor (completely) conjoined with one another in the bilingual mind, but rather exist as integrated source grammars that are further mitigated by a common, combined grammar (Cook, 2016; Goldrick et al., 2016a,b; Putnam and Klosinski, 2017). Here we conceive such a combined grammar in a parallel, distributed, and gradient architecture implemented in a shared vector-space model that employs compression through routinization and dimensionality reduction. We discuss the emergence of such representations and their function in the minds of bilinguals. This architecture aims to be consistent with empirical results on bilingual cognition and memory representations in computational cognitive architectures. PMID:29354079

Initialization Method for Grammar-Guided Genetic Programming

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

García-Arnau, M.; Manrique, D.; Ríos, J.; Rodríguez-Patón, A.

This paper proposes a new tree-generation algorithm for grammarguided genetic programming that includes a parameter to control the maximum size of the trees to be generated. An important feature of this algorithm is that the initial populations generated are adequately distributed in terms of tree size and distribution within the search space. Consequently, genetic programming systems starting from the initial populations generated by the proposed method have a higher convergence speed. Two different problems have been chosen to carry out the experiments: a laboratory test involving searching for arithmetical equalities and the real-world task of breast cancer prognosis. In both problems, comparisons have been made to another five important initialization methods.

Learning of grammar-like visual sequences by adults with and without language-learning disabilities.

PubMed

Aguilar, Jessica M; Plante, Elena

2014-08-01

Two studies examined learning of grammar-like visual sequences to determine whether a general deficit in statistical learning characterizes this population. Furthermore, we tested the hypothesis that difficulty in sustaining attention during the learning task might account for differences in statistical learning. In Study 1, adults with normal language (NL) or language-learning disability (LLD) were familiarized with the visual artificial grammar and then tested using items that conformed or deviated from the grammar. In Study 2, a 2nd sample of adults with NL and LLD were presented auditory word pairs with weak semantic associations (e.g., groom + clean) along with the visual learning task. Participants were instructed to attend to visual sequences and to ignore the auditory stimuli. Incidental encoding of these words would indicate reduced attention to the primary task. In Studies 1 and 2, both groups demonstrated learning and generalization of the artificial grammar. In Study 2, neither the NL nor the LLD group appeared to encode the words presented during the learning phase. The results argue against a general deficit in statistical learning for individuals with LLD and demonstrate that both NL and LLD learners can ignore extraneous auditory stimuli during visual learning.

A Kurdish Grammar: Descriptive Analysis of the Kurdish of Sulaimaniya, Iraq. American Council of Learned Societies Program in Oriental Languages, Publications Series B - Aids - Number 10.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McCarus, Ernest N.

This study is a description of the Kurdish of the city of Sulaimaniya, Iraq. Kurdish dialects cover an area embracing parts of eastern Turkey, Soviet Armenia, northern Syria, western Iran, and Khorasan in Iran. The language is described in terms of (1) phonology, (2) morphology, (3) morphophonemics, (4) word formation, and (5) syntax. An appendix,…

L'enseignement de la musique et de la langue seconde: pistes d'integration et consequences sur les apprentissages (The Teaching of Music and Second Language: Paths for Integration and Consequences for Instruction).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lowe, Anne S.

1998-01-01

An experiment in a grade 2 French immersion program compared performance of a group-taught music lessons totally integrated into classroom instruction and a group not given music instruction. Pre- and post-tests of tonal-rhythmic patterns and form that have commonalities with pronunciation, oral grammar, vocabulary, and reading comprehension found…

Users manual for Streamtube Curvature Analysis: Analytical method for predicting the pressure distribution about a nacelle at transonic speeds, volume 1

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Keith, J. S.; Ferguson, D. R.; Heck, P. H.

1972-01-01

The computer program, Streamtube Curvature Analysis, is described for the engineering user and for the programmer. The user oriented documentation includes a description of the mathematical governing equations, their use in the solution, and the method of solution. The general logical flow of the program is outlined and detailed instructions for program usage and operation are explained. General procedures for program use and the program capabilities and limitations are described. From the standpoint of the grammar, the overlay structure of the program is described. The various storage tables are defined and their uses explained. The input and output are discussed in detail. The program listing includes numerous comments so that the logical flow within the program is easily followed. A test case showing input data and output format is included as well as an error printout description.

Creation Myths of Generative Grammar and the Mathematics of Syntactic Structures

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pullum, Geoffrey K.

Syntactic Structures (Chomsky [6]) is widely believed to have laid the foundations of a cognitive revolution in linguistic science, and to have presented (i) the first use in linguistics of powerful new ideas regarding grammars as generative systems, (ii) a proof that English was not a regular language, (iii) decisive syntactic arguments against context-free phrase structure grammar description, and (iv) a demonstration of how transformational rules could provide a formal solution to those problems. None of these things are true. This paper offers a retrospective analysis and evaluation.

Conflict Resolution and Optimization of Multiple-Satellite Systems (CROMSAT)

DTIC Science & Technology

2007-06-01

Brett N. Laboo Major, Australian Army B.Sc., University of New South Wales (Australian Defence Force Academy), 1994 Submitted in partial...10 a. Transition Diagram ..................................................... 10 b. Languages and Grammars ... Grammars .................................................... 14 6. Language Similarities............................................................ 16

Grammatical Arthritis.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bush, Don

1994-01-01

Discusses grammatical arthritis (an internal buildup of rules that hinders writing flexibility); four new "rules" (concerning "data is,""none are,""hopefully," and the restrictive "which"); attitudes toward English grammar; how to be a helpful editor; and where to learn about grammar. (SR)

Poverty of the stimulus revisited.

PubMed

Berwick, Robert C; Pietroski, Paul; Yankama, Beracah; Chomsky, Noam

2011-01-01

A central goal of modern generative grammar has been to discover invariant properties of human languages that reflect "the innate schematism of mind that is applied to the data of experience" and that "might reasonably be attributed to the organism itself as its contribution to the task of the acquisition of knowledge" (Chomsky, 1971). Candidates for such invariances include the structure dependence of grammatical rules, and in particular, certain constraints on question formation. Various "poverty of stimulus" (POS) arguments suggest that these invariances reflect an innate human endowment, as opposed to common experience: Such experience warrants selection of the grammars acquired only if humans assume, a priori, that selectable grammars respect substantive constraints. Recently, several researchers have tried to rebut these POS arguments. In response, we illustrate why POS arguments remain an important source of support for appeal to a priori structure-dependent constraints on the grammars that humans naturally acquire. Copyright © 2011 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

GDF v2.0, an enhanced version of GDF

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tsoulos, Ioannis G.; Gavrilis, Dimitris; Dermatas, Evangelos

2007-12-01

An improved version of the function estimation program GDF is presented. The main enhancements of the new version include: multi-output function estimation, capability of defining custom functions in the grammar and selection of the error function. The new version has been evaluated on a series of classification and regression datasets, that are widely used for the evaluation of such methods. It is compared to two known neural networks and outperforms them in 5 (out of 10) datasets. Program summaryTitle of program: GDF v2.0 Catalogue identifier: ADXC_v2_0 Program summary URL:http://cpc.cs.qub.ac.uk/summaries/ADXC_v2_0.html Program obtainable from: CPC Program Library, Queen's University, Belfast, N. Ireland Licensing provisions: Standard CPC licence, http://cpc.cs.qub.ac.uk/licence/licence.html No. of lines in distributed program, including test data, etc.: 98 147 No. of bytes in distributed program, including test data, etc.: 2 040 684 Distribution format: tar.gz Programming language: GNU C++ Computer: The program is designed to be portable in all systems running the GNU C++ compiler Operating system: Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD RAM: 200000 bytes Classification: 4.9 Does the new version supersede the previous version?: Yes Nature of problem: The technique of function estimation tries to discover from a series of input data a functional form that best describes them. This can be performed with the use of parametric models, whose parameters can adapt according to the input data. Solution method: Functional forms are being created by genetic programming which are approximations for the symbolic regression problem. Reasons for new version: The GDF package was extended in order to be more flexible and user customizable than the old package. The user can extend the package by defining his own error functions and he can extend the grammar of the package by adding new functions to the function repertoire. Also, the new version can perform function estimation of multi-output functions and it can be used for classification problems. Summary of revisions: The following features have been added to the package GDF: Multi-output function approximation. The package can now approximate any function f:R→R. This feature gives also to the package the capability of performing classification and not only regression. User defined function can be added to the repertoire of the grammar, extending the regression capabilities of the package. This feature is limited to 3 functions, but easily this number can be increased. Capability of selecting the error function. The package offers now to the user apart from the mean square error other error functions such as: mean absolute square error, maximum square error. Also, user defined error functions can be added to the set of error functions. More verbose output. The main program displays more information to the user as well as the default values for the parameters. Also, the package gives to the user the capability to define an output file, where the output of the gdf program for the testing set will be stored after the termination of the process. Additional comments: A technical report describing the revisions, experiments and test runs is packaged with the source code. Running time: Depending on the train data.

Drawing the line between constituent structure and coherence relations in visual narratives

PubMed Central

Cohn, Neil; Bender, Patrick

2016-01-01

Theories of visual narrative understanding have often focused on the changes in meaning across a sequence, like shifts in characters, spatial location, and causation, as cues for breaks in the structure of a discourse. In contrast, the theory of Visual Narrative Grammar posits that hierarchic “grammatical” structures operate at the discourse level using categorical roles for images, which may or may not co-occur with shifts in coherence. We therefore examined the relationship between narrative structure and coherence shifts in the segmentation of visual narrative sequences using a “segmentation task” where participants drew lines between images in order to divide them into sub-episodes. We used regressions to analyze the influence of the expected constituent structure boundary, narrative categories, and semantic coherence relationships on the segmentation of visual narrative sequences. Narrative categories were a stronger predictor of segmentation than linear coherence relationships between panels, though both influenced participants’ divisions. Altogether, these results support the theory that meaningful sequential images use a narrative grammar that extends above and beyond linear semantic shifts between discourse units. PMID:27709982

Drawing the line between constituent structure and coherence relations in visual narratives.

PubMed

Cohn, Neil; Bender, Patrick

2017-02-01

Theories of visual narrative understanding have often focused on the changes in meaning across a sequence, like shifts in characters, spatial location, and causation, as cues for breaks in the structure of a discourse. In contrast, the theory of visual narrative grammar posits that hierarchic "grammatical" structures operate at the discourse level using categorical roles for images, which may or may not co-occur with shifts in coherence. We therefore examined the relationship between narrative structure and coherence shifts in the segmentation of visual narrative sequences using a "segmentation task" where participants drew lines between images in order to divide them into subepisodes. We used regressions to analyze the influence of the expected constituent structure boundary, narrative categories, and semantic coherence relationships on the segmentation of visual narrative sequences. Narrative categories were a stronger predictor of segmentation than linear coherence relationships between panels, though both influenced participants' divisions. Altogether, these results support the theory that meaningful sequential images use a narrative grammar that extends above and beyond linear semantic shifts between discourse units. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Media Grammars, Generations, and Media Gaps.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gumpert, Gary; Cathcart, Robert

1985-01-01

Argues that people are connected or separated more by media experience than by chronological years. Examines how media develop their own grammars, how individuals acquire media literacy, and the effects of media literacy on ways people relate to each other. (PD)

Assessing Primary Literacy through Grammar Tests

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hodgson, John

2017-01-01

Originally an editorial for "English in Education," this short article summarises key issues in the imposition of a separate test for grammar, punctuation and spelling. It illustrates the poor foundations, lack of clarity and distortion of curriculum which invalidate the test.

Algorithme et enseignement de la grammaire (Algorithm and the Teaching of Grammar)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Michiels, A.

1975-01-01

Binary algorithmic logic may prove useful for teaching grammar, especially in the case of 'closed-system items.' (Text is in French.) Available from Instituut voor Toegepaste Linguistiek, Vesaliusstraat 2, B. 3000 Leuven, Belgium. (TL)

Grammar of Binding in the languages of the world: Innate or learned?

PubMed

Cole, Peter; Hermon, Gabriella; Yanti

2015-08-01

Languages around the world often appear to manifest nearly identical grammatical properties, but, at the same time, the grammatical differences can also be great, sometimes even seeming to support Joos's (1958) claim that "languages can differ from each other without limit and in unpredictable way" (p. 96). This state of affairs provides a puzzle for both nativist approaches to language like Generative Grammar that posit a fixed "Universal Grammar", and for approaches that minimize the contribution of innate grammatical structure. We approach this puzzling state of affairs by looking at one area of grammar, "Binding", the system of local and long distance anaphoric elements in a language. This is an area of grammar that has long been central to the Generative approach to language structure. We compare the anaphoric systems found in "familiar" (European-like) languages that contain dedicated classes of bound and free anaphors (pronouns and reflexives) with the anaphoric systems in endangered Austronesian languages of Indonesia, languages in which there is overlap or no distinction between pronouns and reflexives (Peranakan Javanese and Jambi Malay). What is of special interest about Jambi anaphora is not only that conservative dialects of Jambi Malay do not distinguish between pronouns and reflexives, but that Jambi anaphora appear to constitute a live snapshot of a unitary class of anaphora in the process of grammaticalization as a distinct system of pronouns and reflexives. We argue that the facts of Jambi anaphora cannot be explained by theories positing a Universal Grammar of Binding. Thus, these facts provide evidence that complex grammatical systems like Binding cannot be innate. Our results from Austronesian languages are confirmed by data from signed and creole languages. Our conclusion is that the human language learning capacity must include the ability to model the full complexity found in the syntax of the world's languages. From the perspective of child language acquisition, these conclusions suggest that Universal Grammar does not provide a general solution to the problem of poverty of the stimulus, and the solution to that problem must reside at least in part in special properties of the grammar construction tools available to the language learner rather than simply in a fixed set of grammatical rules hard wired into the brains of speakers. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

User-defined functions in the Arden Syntax: An extension proposal.

PubMed

Karadimas, Harry; Ebrahiminia, Vahid; Lepage, Eric

2015-12-11

The Arden Syntax is a knowledge-encoding standard, started in 1989, and now in its 10th revision, maintained by the health level seven (HL7) organization. It has constructs borrowed from several language concepts that were available at that time (mainly the HELP hospital information system and the Regenstrief medical record system (RMRS), but also the Pascal language, functional languages and the data structure of frames, used in artificial intelligence). The syntax has a rationale for its constructs, and has restrictions that follow this rationale. The main goal of the Standard is to promote knowledge sharing, by avoiding the complexity of traditional programs, so that a medical logic module (MLM) written in the Arden Syntax can remain shareable and understandable across institutions. One of the restrictions of the syntax is that you cannot define your own functions and subroutines inside an MLM. An MLM can, however, call another MLM, where this MLM will serve as a function. This will add an additional dependency between MLMs, a known criticism of the Arden Syntax knowledge model. This article explains why we believe the Arden Syntax would benefit from a construct for user-defined functions, discusses the need, the benefits and the limitations of such a construct. We used the recent grammar of the Arden Syntax v.2.10, and both the Arden Syntax standard document and the Arden Syntax Rationale article as guidelines. We gradually introduced production rules to the grammar. We used the CUP parsing tool to verify that no ambiguities were detected. A new grammar was produced, that supports user-defined functions. 22 production rules were added to the grammar. A parser was built using the CUP parsing tool. A few examples are given to illustrate the concepts. All examples were parsed correctly. It is possible to add user-defined functions to the Arden Syntax in a way that remains coherent with the standard. We believe that this enhances the readability and the robustness of MLMs. A detailed proposal will be submitted by the end of the year to the HL7 workgroup on Arden Syntax. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Aspect-Oriented Monitoring of C Programs

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Havelund, Klaus; VanWyk, Eric

2008-01-01

The paper presents current work on extending ASPECTC with state machines, resulting in a framework for aspect-oriented monitoring of C programs. Such a framework can be used for testing purposes, or it can be part of a fault protection strategy. The long term goal is to explore the synergy between the fields of runtime verification, focused on program monitoring, and aspect-oriented programming, focused on more general program development issues. The work is inspired by the observation that most work in this direction has been done for JAVA, partly due to the lack of easily accessible extensible compiler frameworks for C. The work is performed using the SILVER extensible attribute grammar compiler framework, in which C has been defined as a host language. Our work consists of extending C with ASPECTC, and subsequently to extend ASPECTC with state machines.

Maxent Harmonic Grammars and Phonetic Duration

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lefkowitz, Lee Michael

2017-01-01

Research in phonetics has established the grammatical status of gradient phonetic patterns in language, suggesting that there is a component of the grammar that governs systematic relationships between discrete phonological representations and gradiently continuous acoustic or articulatory phonetic representations. This dissertation joins several…

Holistic Grammar.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pierstorff, Don K.

1981-01-01

Parodies holistic approaches to education. Explains an educational approach which simultaneously teaches grammar and arithmetic. Lauds the advantages of the approach as high student attrition, ease of grading, and focus on developing the reptilian portion of the brain. Points out common errors made by students. (AYC)

Si communication savait...Si grammaire pouvait... (If Communication Knew How...If Grammar Could...)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nemni, Monique

1985-01-01

The relationship between the teaching of grammar and the acquisition of communicative competence is examined, and it is concluded that, contrary to some arguments, there is a definite correlation between grammatical accuracy and efficient communication. (MSE)

Nonschematic drawing recognition: a new approach based on attributed graph grammar with flexible embedding

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lee, Kyu J.; Kunii, T. L.; Noma, T.

1993-01-01

In this paper, we propose a syntactic pattern recognition method for non-schematic drawings, based on a new attributed graph grammar with flexible embedding. In our graph grammar, the embedding rule permits the nodes of a guest graph to be arbitrarily connected with the nodes of a host graph. The ambiguity caused by this flexible embedding is controlled with the evaluation of synthesized attributes and the check of context sensitivity. To integrate parsing with the synthesized attribute evaluation and the context sensitivity check, we also develop a bottom up parsing algorithm.

On Anaphora and the Binding Principles in Categorial Grammar

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Morrill, Glyn; Valentín, Oriol

In type logical categorial grammar the analysis of an expression is a resource-conscious proof. Anaphora represents a particular challenge to this approach in that the antecedent resource is multiplied in the semantics. This duplication, which corresponds logically to the structural rule of contraction, may be treated lexically or syntactically. Furthermore, anaphora is subject to constraints, which Chomsky (1981) formulated as Binding Principles A, B, and C. In this paper we consider English anaphora in categorial grammar including reference to the binding principles. We invoke displacement calculus, modal categorial calculus, categorial calculus with limited contraction, and entertain addition of negation as failure.

An Evaluation of Universal Grammar and the Phonological Mind1

PubMed Central

Everett, Daniel L.

2016-01-01

This paper argues against the hypothesis of a “phonological mind” advanced by Berent. It establishes that there is no evidence that phonology is innate and that, in fact, the simplest hypothesis seems to be that phonology is learned like other human abilities. Moreover, the paper fleshes out the original claim of Philip Lieberman that Universal Grammar predicts that not everyone should be able to learn every language, i.e., the opposite of what UG is normally thought to predict. The paper also underscores the problem that the absence of recursion in Pirahã represents for Universal Grammar proposals. PMID:26903889

Learning a generative probabilistic grammar of experience: a process-level model of language acquisition.

PubMed

Kolodny, Oren; Lotem, Arnon; Edelman, Shimon

2015-03-01

We introduce a set of biologically and computationally motivated design choices for modeling the learning of language, or of other types of sequential, hierarchically structured experience and behavior, and describe an implemented system that conforms to these choices and is capable of unsupervised learning from raw natural-language corpora. Given a stream of linguistic input, our model incrementally learns a grammar that captures its statistical patterns, which can then be used to parse or generate new data. The grammar constructed in this manner takes the form of a directed weighted graph, whose nodes are recursively (hierarchically) defined patterns over the elements of the input stream. We evaluated the model in seventeen experiments, grouped into five studies, which examined, respectively, (a) the generative ability of grammar learned from a corpus of natural language, (b) the characteristics of the learned representation, (c) sequence segmentation and chunking, (d) artificial grammar learning, and (e) certain types of structure dependence. The model's performance largely vindicates our design choices, suggesting that progress in modeling language acquisition can be made on a broad front-ranging from issues of generativity to the replication of human experimental findings-by bringing biological and computational considerations, as well as lessons from prior efforts, to bear on the modeling approach. Copyright © 2014 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Narratives in Two Languages: Storytelling of Bilingual Cantonese-English Preschoolers.

PubMed

Rezzonico, Stefano; Goldberg, Ahuva; Mak, Katy Ka-Yan; Yap, Stephanie; Milburn, Trelani; Belletti, Adriana; Girolametto, Luigi

2016-06-01

The aim of this study was to compare narratives generated by 4-year-old and 5-year-old children who were bilingual in English and Cantonese. The sample included 47 children (23 who were 4 years old and 24 who were 5 years old) living in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, who spoke both Cantonese and English. The participants spoke and heard predominantly Cantonese in the home. Participants generated a story in English and Cantonese by using a wordless picture book; language order was counterbalanced. Data were transcribed and coded for story grammar, morphosyntactic quality, mean length of utterance in words, and the number of different words. Repeated measures analysis of variance revealed higher story grammar scores in English than in Cantonese, but no other significant main effects of language were observed. Analyses also revealed that older children had higher story grammar, mean length of utterance in words, and morphosyntactic quality scores than younger children in both languages. Hierarchical regressions indicated that Cantonese story grammar predicted English story grammar and Cantonese microstructure predicted English microstructure. However, no correlation was observed between Cantonese and English morphosyntactic quality. The results of this study have implications for speech-language pathologists who collect narratives in Cantonese and English from bilingual preschoolers. The results suggest that there is a possible transfer in narrative abilities between the two languages.

DBPQL: A view-oriented query language for the Intel Data Base Processor

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Fishwick, P. A.

1983-01-01

An interactive query language (BDPQL) for the Intel Data Base Processor (DBP) is defined. DBPQL includes a parser generator package which permits the analyst to easily create and manipulate the query statement syntax and semantics. The prototype language, DBPQL, includes trace and performance commands to aid the analyst when implementing new commands and analyzing the execution characteristics of the DBP. The DBPQL grammar file and associated key procedures are included as an appendix to this report.

Parser Combinators: a Practical Application for Generating Parsers for NMR Data

PubMed Central

Fenwick, Matthew; Weatherby, Gerard; Ellis, Heidi JC; Gryk, Michael R.

2013-01-01

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is a technique for acquiring protein data at atomic resolution and determining the three-dimensional structure of large protein molecules. A typical structure determination process results in the deposition of a large data sets to the BMRB (Bio-Magnetic Resonance Data Bank). This data is stored and shared in a file format called NMR-Star. This format is syntactically and semantically complex making it challenging to parse. Nevertheless, parsing these files is crucial to applying the vast amounts of biological information stored in NMR-Star files, allowing researchers to harness the results of previous studies to direct and validate future work. One powerful approach for parsing files is to apply a Backus-Naur Form (BNF) grammar, which is a high-level model of a file format. Translation of the grammatical model to an executable parser may be automatically accomplished. This paper will show how we applied a model BNF grammar of the NMR-Star format to create a free, open-source parser, using a method that originated in the functional programming world known as “parser combinators”. This paper demonstrates the effectiveness of a principled approach to file specification and parsing. This paper also builds upon our previous work [1], in that 1) it applies concepts from Functional Programming (which is relevant even though the implementation language, Java, is more mainstream than Functional Programming), and 2) all work and accomplishments from this project will be made available under standard open source licenses to provide the community with the opportunity to learn from our techniques and methods. PMID:24352525

Interfaces. Working Papers in Linguistics No. 32.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zwicky, Arnold M.

The papers collected here concern the interfaces between various components of grammar (semantics, syntax, morphology, and phonology) and between grammar itself and various extragrammatical domains. They include: "The OSU Random, Unorganized Collection of Speech Act Examples"; "In and Out in Phonology"; "Forestress and…

Pour une approche des grammaires d'apprentissage (Toward an Approach to Learners' Grammars).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Feve, Guy

1984-01-01

An approach to teaching grammar that combines an understanding of the error patterns of nonnative speakers and a theoretical model that describes that language is better suited than most to the actual audience of that instruction. (MSE)

[Is there an association between the reduced school years in grammar schools and headache and other health complaints in adolescent students?].

PubMed

Milde-Busch, A; Blaschek, A; Borggräfe, I; von Kries, R; Straube, A; Heinen, F

2010-07-01

The reduction of school years in grammar schools from 9 to 8 years (G9 vs. G8) is supposed to exhibit increased impairments of health of the latter group of students. Aim of the present study was to investigate whether G8-students are exposed to more stress and report more headaches and other health complaints than G9-students. 1 260 formers of grammar schools in Munich (10 (th) vs. 11 (th) form). In a survey, the frequency of headache and other health complaints, experience of chronic stress and health-related quality of life were assessed with a questionnaire and compared between the two groups of different grammar-school durations (G8 vs. G9). 83.1% of all formers reported to suffer from headache at least once per month. Further frequently reported health complaints were back pain (47.7%), excessive need for sleep (45.6%) and pain in neck or shoulder (45.0%). 20.4% of the formers reported high exposure to stress. The greatest reductions in quality of life were found with respect to school-related and physical wellbeing. As the only significant differences, formers of G8 reported fewer daily leisure time and that available leisure time was not sufficient for recreation. The high prevalence of pain, health complaints and stress indicates high demands to all grammar scholars. High demands due to the reduction of school years in grammar school, however, are not reflected in increased health impairments in these formers, but rather in limited leisure time activities. (c) Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart-New York.

Linguistic Grammar Learning and DRD2-TAQ-IA Polymorphism

PubMed Central

Wong, Patrick C. M.; Ettlinger, Marc; Zheng, Jing

2013-01-01

As research into the neurobiology of language has focused primarily on the systems level, fewer studies have examined the link between molecular genetics and normal variations in language functions. Because the ability to learn a language varies in adults and our genetic codes also vary, research linking the two provides a unique window into the molecular neurobiology of language. We consider a candidate association between the dopamine receptor D2 gene (DRD2) and linguistic grammar learning. DRD2-TAQ-IA polymorphism (rs1800497) is associated with dopamine receptor D2 distribution and dopamine impact in the human striatum, such that A1 allele carriers show reduction in D2 receptor binding relative to carriers who are homozygous for the A2 allele. The individual differences in grammatical rule learning that are particularly prevalent in adulthood are also associated with striatal function and its role in domain-general procedural memory. Therefore, we reasoned that procedurally-based grammar learning could be associated with DRD2-TAQ-IA polymorphism. Here, English-speaking adults learned artificial concatenative and analogical grammars, which have been respectively associated with procedural and declarative memory. Language learning capabilities were tested while learners’ neural hemodynamic responses were simultaneously measured by fMRI. Behavioral learning and brain activation data were subsequently compared with the learners’ DRD2 (rs1800497) genotype. Learners who were homozygous for the A2 allele were better at concatenative (but not analogical) grammar learning and had higher striatal responses relative to those who have at least one A1 allele. These results provide preliminary evidence for the neurogenetic basis of normal variations in linguistic grammar learning and its link to domain-general functions. PMID:23741438

LeadMine: a grammar and dictionary driven approach to entity recognition.

PubMed

Lowe, Daniel M; Sayle, Roger A

2015-01-01

Chemical entity recognition has traditionally been performed by machine learning approaches. Here we describe an approach using grammars and dictionaries. This approach has the advantage that the entities found can be directly related to a given grammar or dictionary, which allows the type of an entity to be known and, if an entity is misannotated, indicates which resource should be corrected. As recognition is driven by what is expected, if spelling errors occur, they can be corrected. Correcting such errors is highly useful when attempting to lookup an entity in a database or, in the case of chemical names, converting them to structures. Our system uses a mixture of expertly curated grammars and dictionaries, as well as dictionaries automatically derived from public resources. We show that the heuristics developed to filter our dictionary of trivial chemical names (from PubChem) yields a better performing dictionary than the previously published Jochem dictionary. Our final system performs post-processing steps to modify the boundaries of entities and to detect abbreviations. These steps are shown to significantly improve performance (2.6% and 4.0% F1-score respectively). Our complete system, with incremental post-BioCreative workshop improvements, achieves 89.9% precision and 85.4% recall (87.6% F1-score) on the CHEMDNER test set. Grammar and dictionary approaches can produce results at least as good as the current state of the art in machine learning approaches. While machine learning approaches are commonly thought of as "black box" systems, our approach directly links the output entities to the input dictionaries and grammars. Our approach also allows correction of errors in detected entities, which can assist with entity resolution.

LeadMine: a grammar and dictionary driven approach to entity recognition

PubMed Central

2015-01-01

Background Chemical entity recognition has traditionally been performed by machine learning approaches. Here we describe an approach using grammars and dictionaries. This approach has the advantage that the entities found can be directly related to a given grammar or dictionary, which allows the type of an entity to be known and, if an entity is misannotated, indicates which resource should be corrected. As recognition is driven by what is expected, if spelling errors occur, they can be corrected. Correcting such errors is highly useful when attempting to lookup an entity in a database or, in the case of chemical names, converting them to structures. Results Our system uses a mixture of expertly curated grammars and dictionaries, as well as dictionaries automatically derived from public resources. We show that the heuristics developed to filter our dictionary of trivial chemical names (from PubChem) yields a better performing dictionary than the previously published Jochem dictionary. Our final system performs post-processing steps to modify the boundaries of entities and to detect abbreviations. These steps are shown to significantly improve performance (2.6% and 4.0% F1-score respectively). Our complete system, with incremental post-BioCreative workshop improvements, achieves 89.9% precision and 85.4% recall (87.6% F1-score) on the CHEMDNER test set. Conclusions Grammar and dictionary approaches can produce results at least as good as the current state of the art in machine learning approaches. While machine learning approaches are commonly thought of as "black box" systems, our approach directly links the output entities to the input dictionaries and grammars. Our approach also allows correction of errors in detected entities, which can assist with entity resolution. PMID:25810776

Interrogating the Grammars of Institutions and Injustice

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bradley, Deborah

2017-01-01

This editorial introduction to "Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education" "ACT" 16 (3) explores institutions as sites of paradox whose mission statements (or constitutions in the case of government) suggest concerns for diversity and inclusion but whose "grammars" (Bonilla-Silva 2011) frame thought and action…

A Grammar Library for Information Structure

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Song, Sanghoun

2014-01-01

This dissertation makes substantial contributions to both the theoretical and computational treatment of information structure, with an eye toward creating natural language processing applications such as multilingual machine translation systems. The aim of the present dissertation is to create a grammar library of information structure for the…

Computer-Based Linguistic Analysis.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wright, James R.

Noam Chomsky's transformational-generative grammar model may effectively be translated into an equivalent computer model. Phrase-structure rules and transformations are tested as to their validity and ordering by the computer via the process of random lexical substitution. Errors appearing in the grammar are detected and rectified, and formal…

Using Songs in Enhancing the Teaching of Grammar

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Roslim, Norwati; Azizul, Aini Faridah; Zain, Mazira Mohd

2011-01-01

This paper shares research and studies done in using songs to teach grammar from the theoretical and practical perspectives. The theoretical part focuses on the Affective Filter Hypothesis proposed by Krashen (1982) and the practical part focuses on techniques in using songs in classrooms.

Towards a Pragmatic Grammar of Teachers' Epistemic Networks.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tochon, Francois V.

Possibilities of conceptual and pragmatic analysis exist for identifying epistemological processing in teacher thinking. These modes of organizing thought condition classroom planning, shape meaning from a virtual didactic knowledge-store, and scaffold further pedagogical interactions. The semio-cognitive grammar proposed is adapted to the…

Image Analysis and Modeling

DTIC Science & Technology

1975-05-01

place "subgraphs" with more complicated subgraphs. There have beer many re- sults reported which extend string-grammar theorems to web grammar...W. Bacus and E. E. Gose , "Leukocyte Pattern Recognition," IEEE SMC-2. No. 2, pp. 513-536, September 1972. [4] J. K. Hawkins

Spontaneous Grammar Explanations.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tjoo, Hong Sing; Lewis, Marilyn

1998-01-01

Describes one New Zealand university language teacher's reflection on her own grammar explanations to university-level students of Bahasa Indonesian. Examines form-focused instruction through the teacher's spontaneous answers to students' questions about the form of the language they are studying. The teacher's experiences show that it takes time…

A Grammar of Kurtop

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hyslop, Gwendolyn

2011-01-01

Kurtop is a Tibeto-Burman language spoken by approximately 15,000 people in Northeastern Bhutan. This dissertation is the first descriptive grammar of the language, based on extensive fieldwork and community-driven language documentation in Bhutan. When possible, analyses are presented in typological and historical/comparative perspectives and…

Slavic in Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Borsley, Robert D., Ed.; Przepiorkowski, Adam, Ed.

The collection of essays on the properties of Slavic languages in the context of the theory of head-driven phrase structure grammar (HPSG) includes: "Typological Similarities in HPSG" (Tania Avgustinova, Wojciech Skut, Hans Uszkoreit); "Auxiliaries, Verbs and Complementizers in Polish" (Robert D. Borsley); "An Architecture…

Solving Constraint-Satisfaction Problems In Prolog Language

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Nachtsheim, Philip R.

1991-01-01

Technique for solution of constraint-satisfaction problems uses definite-clause grammars of Prolog computer language. Exploits fact that grammar-rule notation viewed as "state-change notation". Facilitates development of dynamic representation performing informed as well as blind searches. Applicable to design, scheduling, and planning problems.

Parsing recursive sentences with a connectionist model including a neural stack and synaptic gating.

PubMed

Fedor, Anna; Ittzés, Péter; Szathmáry, Eörs

2011-02-21

It is supposed that humans are genetically predisposed to be able to recognize sequences of context-free grammars with centre-embedded recursion while other primates are restricted to the recognition of finite state grammars with tail-recursion. Our aim was to construct a minimalist neural network that is able to parse artificial sentences of both grammars in an efficient way without using the biologically unrealistic backpropagation algorithm. The core of this network is a neural stack-like memory where the push and pop operations are regulated by synaptic gating on the connections between the layers of the stack. The network correctly categorizes novel sentences of both grammars after training. We suggest that the introduction of the neural stack memory will turn out to be substantial for any biological 'hierarchical processor' and the minimalist design of the model suggests a quest for similar, realistic neural architectures. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Complexity, Training Paradigm Design, and the Contribution of Memory Subsystems to Grammar Learning

PubMed Central

Ettlinger, Marc; Wong, Patrick C. M.

2016-01-01

Although there is variability in nonnative grammar learning outcomes, the contributions of training paradigm design and memory subsystems are not well understood. To examine this, we presented learners with an artificial grammar that formed words via simple and complex morphophonological rules. Across three experiments, we manipulated training paradigm design and measured subjects' declarative, procedural, and working memory subsystems. Experiment 1 demonstrated that passive, exposure-based training boosted learning of both simple and complex grammatical rules, relative to no training. Additionally, procedural memory correlated with simple rule learning, whereas declarative memory correlated with complex rule learning. Experiment 2 showed that presenting corrective feedback during the test phase did not improve learning. Experiment 3 revealed that structuring the order of training so that subjects are first exposed to the simple rule and then the complex improved learning. The cumulative findings shed light on the contributions of grammatical complexity, training paradigm design, and domain-general memory subsystems in determining grammar learning success. PMID:27391085

Classroom Materials for Job-Related BSEP 2 Program

DTIC Science & Technology

1983-09-01

gathered D. gathered, combined, camoufl age 10. The greedy man was happy to take the money. A. greedy C. was *B. was happy D. take 11. The banana ...tastes good with peanut butter on it. A. tastes C. tastes good B. on D. banana III. Instructions: You are given a choice of two verbs in the following...previously o.- before. (The M16 had ALREADY been fired.) 162 peel Grammar Activity Sheet 36A Good Usage of English Name 6. ALL RIGHT - "ALRIGHT" ALL RIGHT

Fiche pratique: Anaphores et enchainements; B. d. de Grand Vent; FDM Frequence plus: Une minute sur la mode; Chimie pour non-chimistes (Practical Ideas: Anaphors and Linking; The Comic Strip "Grand Vent"; One Minute on Fashion; Chemistry for Non-Chemists).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Baldovi, Josep Ramon Torres

1994-01-01

Ideas for French instruction are offered, including a grammar exercise on pronouns; exploration of a comic strip's language and culture; use of a taped program on fashion; and an activity to help French language teachers cope with unfamiliar discipline-specific texts, whose topics (but not language) are familiar to their students. (MSE)

Multiple Grammars: Old Wine in Old Bottles

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sorace, Antonella

2014-01-01

Amaral and Roeper (this issue; henceforth A&R) argue that all speakers -- regardless of whether monolingual or bilingual -- have multiple grammars in their mental language representations. They further claim that this simple assumption can explain many things: optionality in second language (L2) language behaviour, multilingualism, language…

LANGUAGE AND THE MIND.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

CHOMSKY, NOAM

WITHIN THE GENERAL FRAMEWORK OF PRINCIPLES OF LEARNING, THE AUTHOR DISCUSSES THE LINGUISTIC RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE STUDY OF GRAMMAR AND UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR, AND HOW THIS RELATIONSHIP CORRELATES WITH THE MECHANISMS OF HUMAN PERCEPTION AND LEARNING. HE EMPHASIZES THAT LANGUAGE IS NEITHER ENTIRELY INNOVATIVE NOR A "HABIT STRUCTURE," BUT RATHER IS…

The Grammar of Artifactual Action.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bhola, H. S.

This paper examines the process of intervention design as it relates to the grammar of artifactual action. In his discussion, the author identifies three separate elements of artifactual action. These elements include defining the situation of action and the change agent's relationship to the situation; generating typical expectations about…

Eye Movements in Implicit Artificial Grammar Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Silva, Susana; Inácio, Filomena; Folia, Vasiliki; Petersson, Karl Magnus

2017-01-01

Artificial grammar learning (AGL) has been probed with forced-choice behavioral tests (active tests). Recent attempts to probe the outcomes of learning (implicitly acquired knowledge) with eye-movement responses (passive tests) have shown null results. However, these latter studies have not tested for sensitivity effects, for example, increased…

Upending the Grammar of the Conventional Religious School

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Aron, Isa

2014-01-01

This article provides an overview and analysis of a relatively new phenomenon: congregational schools that have altered the conventional grammar of schooling, either through their structural arrangements or through their curricular approaches. Five pre-bar/bat mitzvah models are discussed: family schools, schools as communities,…

Noam Chomsky Writes to Mrs. Davis about Grammar and Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

English Education, 1984

1984-01-01

In a personal letter, Chomsky suggests that while the study of grammar has little detectable effect on writing ability, it can, as a branch of science, help students learn how (and why) to think about hard and intriguing questions and to develop natural curiosity. (HOD)

The Role of Core Grammar in Pidgin Development.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Macedo, Donaldo P.

1986-01-01

Examines the process of pidgin development within the context of the Government and Binding Theory proposed by Chomsky in 1981. Hypothesizes that the contact of various languages may produce a new experience which subsequently fixes the parameters of Universal Grammar, providing a pidgin core gammar. (SED)

Language Dictionaries and Grammars of Guam and Micronesia.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Goetzfridt, Nicholas J.; Goniwiecha, Mark C.

The study of language reference materials, particularly dictionaries and grammar works, for languages of Guam and Micronesia includes a brief history of their evolution and an annotated bibliography. An introductory section describes the geographic situation of Micronesia and chronicles numerous periods of foreign influence: Spanish Colonization…

A Grammar of Bih

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nguyen, Tam Thi Minh

2013-01-01

Bih is a Chamic (Austronesian) language spoken by approximately 500 people in the Southern highlands of Vietnam. This dissertation is the first descriptive grammar of the language, based on extensive fieldwork and community-based language documentation in Vietnam and written from a functional/typological perspective. The analysis in this work is…

Theories of Artificial Grammar Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pothos, Emmanuel M.

2007-01-01

Artificial grammar learning (AGL) is one of the most commonly used paradigms for the study of implicit learning and the contrast between rules, similarity, and associative learning. Despite five decades of extensive research, however, a satisfactory theoretical consensus has not been forthcoming. Theoretical accounts of AGL are reviewed, together…

The relationship between vocabulary, grammar, and false belief task performance in children with autistic spectrum disorders and children with moderate learning difficulties.

PubMed

Fisher, Naomi; Happé, Francesca; Dunn, Judy

2005-04-01

The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between language and theory of mind in children with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) and children with moderate learning difficulties (MLD). Previous studies have found a strong association between language and theory of mind in a range of groups, but mostly have not included measures of both grammar and vocabulary; including these enables us to speculate about the causal direction of the relationship. Fifty-eight children with ASD and 118 children with MLD were given standardised assessments of vocabulary and grammar, along with standard theory of mind tasks. The relationship between language and theory of mind was more evident in children with ASD than in those with MLD, and grammar was a particularly strong predictor of theory of mind performance in children with ASD. Children with MLD performed better on false belief (FB) tasks than did children with ASD, and their performance was more predictable across the different theory of mind tasks. Language, in particular grammar, and theory of mind appear to be more strongly related in children with ASD than in those with MLD. We speculate that this relationship may be causal, with some grammatical understanding being a precursor of theory of mind. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to possible routes for compensatory strategies for mentalising in children with ASD.

Early neurophysiological indices of second language morphosyntax learning

PubMed Central

Hanna, Jeff; Shtyrov, Yury; Williams, John; Pulvermüller, Friedemann

2016-01-01

Humans show variable degrees of success in acquiring a second language (L2). In many cases, morphological and syntactic knowledge remain deficient, although some learners succeed in reaching nativelike levels, even if they begin acquiring their L2 relatively late. In this study, we use psycholinguistic, online language proficiency tests and a neurophysiological index of syntactic processing, the syntactic mismatch negativity (sMMN) to local agreement violations, to compare behavioural and neurophysiological markers of grammar processing between native speakers (NS) of English and non-native speakers (NNS). Variable grammar proficiency was measured by psycholinguistic tests. When NS heard ungrammatical word sequences lacking agreement between subject and verb (e.g. *we kicks), the MMN was enhanced compared with syntactically legal sentences (e.g. he kicks). More proficient NNS also showed this difference, but less proficient NNS did not. The main cortical sources of the MMN responses were localised in bilateral superior temporal areas, where, crucially, source strength of grammar-related neuronal activity correlated significantly with grammatical proficiency of individual L2 speakers as revealed by the psycholinguistic tests. As our results show similar, early MMN indices to morpho-syntactic agreement violations among both native speakers and non-native speakers with high grammar proficiency, they appear consistent with the use of similar brain mechanisms for at least certain aspects of L1 and L2 grammars. PMID:26752451

New evidence of a rhythmic priming effect that enhances grammaticality judgments in children.

PubMed

Chern, Alexander; Tillmann, Barbara; Vaughan, Chloe; Gordon, Reyna L

2018-09-01

Musical rhythm and the grammatical structure of language share a surprising number of characteristics that may be intrinsically related in child development. The current study aimed to understand the potential influence of musical rhythmic priming on subsequent spoken grammar task performance in children with typical development who were native speakers of English. Participants (ages 5-8 years) listened to rhythmically regular and irregular musical sequences (within-participants design) followed by blocks of grammatically correct and incorrect sentences upon which they were asked to perform a grammaticality judgment task. Rhythmically regular musical sequences improved performance in grammaticality judgment compared with rhythmically irregular musical sequences. No such effect of rhythmic priming was found in two nonlinguistic control tasks, suggesting a neural overlap between rhythm processing and mechanisms recruited during grammar processing. These findings build on previous research investigating the effect of rhythmic priming by extending the paradigm to a different language, testing a younger population, and employing nonlanguage control tasks. These findings of an immediate influence of rhythm on grammar states (temporarily augmented grammaticality judgment performance) also converge with previous findings of associations between rhythm and grammar traits (stable generalized grammar abilities) in children. Taken together, the results of this study provide additional evidence for shared neural processing for language and music and warrant future investigations of potentially beneficial effects of innovative musical material on language processing. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Early neurophysiological indices of second language morphosyntax learning.

PubMed

Hanna, Jeff; Shtyrov, Yury; Williams, John; Pulvermüller, Friedemann

2016-02-01

Humans show variable degrees of success in acquiring a second language (L2). In many cases, morphological and syntactic knowledge remain deficient, although some learners succeed in reaching nativelike levels, even if they begin acquiring their L2 relatively late. In this study, we use psycholinguistic, online language proficiency tests and a neurophysiological index of syntactic processing, the syntactic mismatch negativity (sMMN) to local agreement violations, to compare behavioural and neurophysiological markers of grammar processing between native speakers (NS) of English and non-native speakers (NNS). Variable grammar proficiency was measured by psycholinguistic tests. When NS heard ungrammatical word sequences lacking agreement between subject and verb (e.g. *we kicks), the MMN was enhanced compared with syntactically legal sentences (e.g. he kicks). More proficient NNS also showed this difference, but less proficient NNS did not. The main cortical sources of the MMN responses were localised in bilateral superior temporal areas, where, crucially, source strength of grammar-related neuronal activity correlated significantly with grammatical proficiency of individual L2 speakers as revealed by the psycholinguistic tests. As our results show similar, early MMN indices to morpho-syntactic agreement violations among both native speakers and non-native speakers with high grammar proficiency, they appear consistent with the use of similar brain mechanisms for at least certain aspects of L1 and L2 grammars. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

On directionality of phrase structure building.

PubMed

Chesi, Cristiano

2015-02-01

Minimalism in grammatical theorizing (Chomsky in The minimalist program. MIT Press, Cambridge, 1995) led to simpler linguistic devices and a better focalization of the core properties of the structure building engine: a lexicon and a free (recursive) phrase formation operation, dubbed Merge, are the basic components that serve in building syntactic structures. Here I suggest that by looking at the elementary restrictions that apply to Merge (i.e., selection and licensing of functional features), we could conclude that a re-orientation of the syntactic derivation (from bottom-up/right-left to top-down/left-right) is necessary to make the theory simpler, especially for long-distance (filler-gap) dependencies, and is also empirically more adequate. If the structure building operations would assemble lexical items in the order they are pronounced (Phillips in Order and structure. PhD thesis, MIT, 1996; Chesi in Phases and cartography in linguistic computation: Toward a cognitively motivated computational model of linguistic competence. PhD thesis, Università di Siena, 2004; Chesi in Competence and computation: Toward a processing friendly minimalist grammar. Unipress, Padova, 2012), on-line performance data could better fit the grammatical model, without resorting to external "performance factors." The phase-based, top-down (and, as a consequence, left-right) Minimalist Grammar here discussed goes in this direction, ultimately showing how strong Islands (Huang in Logical relations in Chinese and the theory of grammar. PhD thesis, MIT, 1982) and intervention effects (Gordon et al. in J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 27:1411-1423, 2001, Gordon et al. in J Mem Lang 51:97-114, 2004) could be better explained in structural terms assuming this unconventional derivational direction.

Relationship between diet and physical activity level in adolescents from post-grammar schools.

PubMed

Dmitruk, Agnieszka; Kunicka, Izabela; Popławska, Helena; Hołub, Wojciech

2016-01-01

Appropriate diet and physical activity are vital determinants of psychophysical development in children and adolescents. The aim of the study was to analyse an association between dietary habits and physical activity levels of adolescents from post-grammar schools. The study included 110 girls and 65 boys between 16 and 19 years of age from two post-grammar schools in Biała Podlaska in Poland. They were subjected to a diagnostic survey providing information on their diet (number of meals a day, their regularity, frequency of bread, dairy, meat, fish, sweet, fruit, vegetable and fast food consumption, preferred ways of food processing). Physical activity levels were determined with the International Physical Activity Questionnaire--Short Form (IPAQ-SF). Based on these data, the respondents were stratified to high, moderate and low physical activity groups. Due to small number of participants presenting with low physical activity levels, we did not include this group in further analyses. The significance of differences in the dietary habits of adolescents presenting with high and moderate physical activity levels was verified with the χ2 test. Most girls and boys presented with high levels of physical activity. However, we did not find an evident relationship between dietary habits and physical activity levels. Girls from high and moderate physical activity groups differed solely in terms of the number of daily meals, frequency of meat and sweet consumption, and significant intergroup differences observed among boys pertained to the frequencies of whole-wheat bread, meat and fast food consumption. The abovementioned food products were consumed more often by girls and boys presenting with high physical activity levels. The dietary mistakes observed in physically active adolescents from post-secondary schools justify intensification of their dietary education programs.

Grammar Schools: Brief Flowering of Social Mobility?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Barker, Bernard

2012-01-01

Grammar schools are increasingly remembered, especially by right-wing ideologues, as the agents of a "brief flowering" of post-war social mobility. This article presents statistical, documentary and interview evidence of secondary education in the eleven plus era, and finds nothing to justify the claim that selective schools produced a general…

Epilogue: Dynamic Morphosyntax in Functional Discourse Grammar

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Velasco, Daniel Garcia; Hengeveld, Kees; Mackenzie, J. Lachlan

2012-01-01

This epilogue addresses the most important topics and challenges for the Morphosyntactic Level in Functional Discourse Grammar that have been raised in the articles in this Special Issue. We begin by exploring the differences between the Morphosyntactic Level in FDG and the treatment of morphosyntactic phenomena in other linguistic frameworks. We…

Teaching English in the World

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lindblom, Kenneth

2004-01-01

English and writing teachers are often pressurized to return to the basics of grammar, despite the evidence that drilling grammar does not improve students' writing skills. A great disparity exists between public perception of effective education and the perception of professional educators, which is the main reason why parents and government…

Studies in Philippine Linguistics, Volume 7, Number 1, 1988.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Otanes, Fe T., Ed.; Hale, Austin, Ed.

1988-01-01

This collection contains three papers on the Cotabato Manobo language and culture and one on a variety of cultures. "Cotabato Manobo Grammar" by Harland Kerr is an extensive description of the grammar focusing on syntactic relationships within it. "Cotabato Manobo Ethnography" by Harland Kerr is a 1957 ethnographic study based…

Cognitive Adequacy in a Dialogic Functional Discourse Grammar

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mackenzie, J. Lachlan

2012-01-01

Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG), as a theory of the organization of natural languages, seeks to attain pragmatic, typological and cognitive adequacy. The attempt to achieve cognitive adequacy has been fraught with problems stemming from the vagueness of the concept and the difficulty of adapting to trends in psycholinguistics. Specifically,…

Assessing Linguistic Competence: Verbal Inflection in Child Tamil

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lakshmanan, Usha

2006-01-01

Within child language acquisition research, there has been a fair amount of controversy regarding children's knowledge of the grammatical properties associated with verbal inflection (e.g., tense, agreement, and aspect). Some researchers have proposed that the child's early grammar is fundamentally different from the adult grammar, whereas others…

Studies in Inuktitut Grammar

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Beach, Matthew David

2012-01-01

This dissertation addresses a number of issues about the grammar of Eastern Canadian Inuktitut. Inuktitut is a dialect within the Inuit dialect continuum which is a group of languages/dialects within the Eskimo-Aleut language family. (Eastern Canadian Inuktitut has an ISO 693-3 language code of "ike".) Typologically, it is an ergative…

Responsible Grammar Rebels: Using the Hunger Games Trilogy to Teach the Intentional Sentence Fragment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Simmons, Amber M.

2016-01-01

Building off of students' interest in popular apocalyptic/dystopian literature, this article explores how passages from Suzanne Collins's "The Hunger Games" trilogy aided in teaching students how to successfully rebel against traditional grammar rules, looking at fragments as intentional stylistic choices. Employing the values of…

Foreign Language Textbook Activities: Keeping Pace with Second Language Acquisition Research.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Aski, Janice M.

2003-01-01

Recent research in second language acquisition found that learners reached higher levels of achievement when grammar practice included the processing and negotiation of meaning. Explored the degree to which certain textbook activities reflected earlier findings. Activities for two grammar points from Italian texts still rely heavily on…

Yes, We Still Need Universal Grammar

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lidz, Jeffrey; Gleitman, Lila R.

2004-01-01

In a recent paper [Lidz, J., Gleitman, H., & Gleitman, L. (2003). Understanding how input matters: Verb learning and the footprint of universal grammar. "Cognition," 87, 151-178], we provided cross-linguistic evidence in favor of the following linked assertions: (i) Verb argument structure is a correlate of verb meaning; (ii) However, argument…

The Effect of Story Grammars on Creative Self-Efficacy and Digital Storytelling

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Liu, C.-C.; Wu, L. Y.; Chen, Z.-M.; Tsai, C.-C.; Lin, H.-M.

2014-01-01

Previous studies have proposed that the grammars may serve as a rule-based scaffolding to facilitate story comprehension in storytelling activities. Such scaffoldings may inform students of crucial story elements and possible transitions among different elements. However, how these scaffoldings may influence story creation/writing activities is…

Do You Hear What I Hear?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Verner, Zenobia B.; Williams, Patricia

1982-01-01

An approach to teaching grammar through the use of speaking and listening activities is presented in this brief article. AUTHOR'S COMMENT (excerpt): Why practice the language simply by completing worksheets or exercises in the grammar book? There are various ways to teach language through speaking and listening exercises. These are several…

Challenges in Archetypes Terminology Binding Using SNOMED-CT Compositional Grammar: The Norwegian Patient Summary Case.

PubMed

Marco-Ruiz, Luis; Pedersen, Rune

2017-01-01

In order to cover the requirements for interoperability in the Norwegian context, we studied the terminology binding of archetypes to terminology expressions created with the SNOMED-CT compositional grammar. As a result we identified important challenges categorized as technical, expressivity, human, and models mismatch.

Do Null Subjects (Mis-)Trigger Pro-Drop Grammars?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Frazier, Lyn

2015-01-01

Native speakers of English regularly hear sentences without overt subjects. Nevertheless, they maintain a [[superscript -]pro] grammar that requires sentences to have an overt subject. It is proposed that listeners of English recognize that speakers reduce predictable material and thus attribute null subjects to this process, rather than changing…

Semiotics: Towards Romance and Precision in Language.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thomas, D. Wilcox

Although grammar has its place in secondary education, teachers have been consistently premature in their zeal to impose order and precision on students' understanding of language through grammar. This paper argues that romance demands and deserves a special place in the language curriculum. Romance encompasses the humanistic aspects of language…

Artificial Grammar Learning in Dyslexic and Nondyslexic Adults: Implications for Orthographic Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Samara, Anna; Caravolas, Markéta

2017-01-01

Potential implicit orthographic learning deficits were investigated in adults with dyslexia. An artificial grammar learning paradigm served to assess dyslexic and typical readers' ability to exploit information about chunk frequency, letter-position patterns, and specific string similarity, all of which have analogous constructs in real…