Consistent error patterns in English past-tense forms are reported for three age groups: preschoolers, 8–10-year-olds, and adults. It is argued that, although irregular forms are rote-learned, speakers make generalizations about such forms. Such a generalization is defined as a schema which describes general phonological properties of a morphological class, and is used in organizing and accessing the lexicon. Schemas for the English past tense develop and change with age, yielding implications for both acquisitional and diachronic theory.

It has been observed that many languages exhibit a semantic, syntactic, or morphological correlation between the direct objects of transitive verbs and the surface subjects of certain inactive intransitives. The Unaccusative Hypothesis (UH) proposes, within the framework of Relational Grammar, that final subjects of this type are initial direct objects. This paper shows that several morphological and syntactic processes in Georgian refer to just these nominals, thus supporting the UH. It further shows that, although the semantic relations of nominals to verbs is not irrelevant, those morphological and syntactic processes which refer to initial direct objects cannot be stated simply on the basis of semantics.

The pragmatic structuring of a Guaraní sentence is realized primarily by constituent structure. The syntactic elements of a sentence are partitioned into pragmatic components which, when related syntagmatically by scope and pragmatic function, typically form a right-branching structure. In the unmarked case, the pragmatic nucleus has unmarked Topic plus Core. An expression becomes marked when (a final segment of) the nucleus is given a binary pragmatic structure, highlighted by intonation and other features, with the marked expression as the first constituent. The remaining constituent may in turn be pragmatically structured. Marked pragmatic structuring reflects specific pragmatic conditions. This analysis accounts for most occurrences of marked wordorder, the placement of the intonation center and other intonation peaks, certain free subjects (both nouns and pronouns), various particles, and other boundary phenomena.

In conversations involving more than two people, most utterances are intended to be understood not only by the people being addressed, but also by the others. These utterances cannot be accounted for in current theories of speech acts unless several basic changes are made. In our proposal, the speaker performs two types of illocutionary act with each utterance. One is the traditional kind, such as an assertion, promise, or apology; this is directed at the addressees. The other, called an informative, is directed at all the participants in the conversation—the addressees and third parties alike. It is intended to inform all of them jointly of the assertion, promise, or apology being directed at the addressees. We present evidence that every traditional illocutionary act is performed by means of an informative.

Two approaches to the problem of interpreting utterances are sketched: a structural account at the levels of sentence and speech act, and an interactional account of their functions and consequences as constitutive of the social order in which they occur. For the problem of utterance interpretation, linguistic analyses can specify potential meanings and functions, but cannot indicate actual interpretations to which conversationalists are oriented. Linguistic analysis alone renders an account that is propositionally ambiguous, functionally equivocal, and interactionally indeterminate. In order to account for how talk becomes determinate for conversationalists, a pragmatically-based interactional approach is offered. A segment of actual conversation that occurred during a first-grade lesson is analysed here, with focus on a description of the contexts in terms of which talk is understood. One utterance in particular, characterized as a pragmatic counterfactual, is discussed at length as a unique product of an interactional account of conversation.