The displacement of the prepositional object from PP (DPO) was strictly prohibited in Old English (OE). No matter how such a prohibition is theoretically analyzed, it seems clear that OE had some sort of constraint against DPO. In this paper, I address the issue of what motivated the constraint by explaining what made DPO so difficult in OE. In particular, on the basis of the discussion about relative obliqueness among OE NP arguments, I propose that what was behind the constraint is both a high degree of obliqueness of OE prepositional arguments, which was rigidly marked and represented by the preposition as an obliqueness marker, and the representation and maintenance of relative obliqueness among OE NP arguments.

The question of how / ... VCV .../ sequences should be syllabified is a much discussed, yet unresolved, issue in English phonology. While most researchers recognize an over-all universal tendency towards open syllables, there seem to be at least two different views as regards the analysis of / ... VCV .../ when the second vowel is unstressed: ambisyllabicity (e.g., Kahn 1976) and resyllabification (e.g., Borowsky 1986). Basically, we adopt the latter view and will present further evidence in its favor. This does not exclude low-level “phonetic” ambisyllabification, however. Following Nespor and Vogel (1986), we also assume that the domain of syllabification or resyllabification is the phonological word. With the new conception of the syllable structure of English, we attempt a reanalysis of Aitkin's Law as well as fe-tensing in New York City and Philadelphia.

In English we find two aspectual menaings, progressiveness and habits, which do not seem to fit in any of the classical four situation types of state, activity, accomplishment and achievement, established by Vendler in 1967. This paper analyzes the aspectual features of progressiveness and habits to find out their similarities to and differences from Vendler's four types. It turns out that the progressiveness has the same features as those of activity, and that the habits has independent combination of aspectual features distinguished from any of the four types.

This paper examines syntactic categorial properties of “be” in Korean EFL beginners' utterances. Mainly based upon the acquisition data in Han (2000) and Shin (2000), it proposes that the so-called “S-be-X” construction is a projection of “underdeveloped” functional category F. The projection FP is different from other standard functional categories in that its head is not fully fledged.

In this paper I review previous analyses of specific indefinites, and propose a new analysis. The main claim is that a specific indefinite presupposes that an agent, a speaker in general, has in mind an individual which satisfies the descriptive content. I provide evidence for the ambiguity view of specificity. First, I show that a specific indefinite triggers a pre- supposition. Second, I show that a specific indefinite is a strong quantifier while a nonspecific is a weak one. Finally, I discuss different behaviors of specific and nonspecific indefinites in anaphora.

In English, whether or not wh-movement creates weak crossover effects depends upon the type of wh-phrases that cross over. A bare interrogative like who shows a typical weak crossover effect whereas which N type (e.g. which girl) and partitive type (e.g. which of these girls) wh-phrases would show mere weaker and weakest crossover effects, respectively. Previous approaches to English crossover phenomena that resort to a binary notion of specificity or D-linking cannot account for the three-way contrast the three different types of wh-phrases show. To overcome this problem, I argue in this paper that specificity should be a non-binary set-theoretic notion and propose the following subset principle and optimal binding relation: Between two lexical nominal expressions A and B, A is regarded as more specific than B iff the denotation of A comes from a more narrowly defined non-singleton set than B. Between two lexical nominal expressions A and B, if A locally binds B, then the non-singleton set from which the denotation of A comes should be a subset of the set from which the denotation of B comes (i.e. B cannot be more specific than A). The smaller the subset (i.e. the wider the specificity gap between binder and binder), the more optimal the local binding relation is. A locally binds B iff A is coindexed with B, and A c-commands B, and there is no such C that does not bind A but binds B. Finally, I show that partitivity functions to carve out a smaller subset and thus make partitive wh-phrases more specific than simple which N type wh-phrases.

The main goal of this paper is to examine the current English education practices in Korea in the broad context of research and academia. Furthermore, it attempts to uncover why English education has not been well established as a field of science in English-related departments and consequently what has been neglected and what issues should be dealt with to increase understanding and to create a more interactive relationship between the university and society. First, the author deals with the influence of ‘folk science’ views in the field of English education by touching on some widely held perceptions and issues. Second, by dealing with the alienation of English education and examining the phenomenon of seeing English education as a secondary field of science in English related departments, an attempt was made to reveal underlying epistemological dualism rooted in Asian cultures. Third, the paper deals with a critical issue related to English education: Exposure and Time. By reviewing and reinterpreting some of basic and fundamental literature with respect to language learning, exposure, and time, the author raises a new issue in English education and proposes new interpretation and an alternative more relativistic viewpoint; he also investigates what should be done to improve English education on the basis of research and science in order to deal with the needs and problems of society.

The operation Move is defined in Chomsky (1999, 2000) as a composite operation consisting of three components: Agree, Identify and Merge, taking Agree as a necessary condition for Move. Therefore, I call this definition of Move as the Agree-based Move. In this paper, I argue that the Agree-based approach to Move cannot be maintained; I claim that the Selection-based approach to Move, in which the EPP-feature is analyzed as an s-selectional property of a head, offers a more natural account of the sentences under consideration. I believe that the three components of Move as defined in (6) happen to co-occur in the derivation of certain sentences, as the composite transformation called Passivization does in the derivation of a passive sentence like “the city was destroyed by the enemy.” On the basis of these observations, I conclude that Agree and Move should be regarded as separate computational operations; the task of Agree is to erase uninterpretable features of both probe and goal, and that of Move is to satisfy the EPP-feature, which should be taken as an s-selectional feature.

Listening comprehension is an integrative and creative process of interaction through which listeners receive speakers' production of linguistic or non-linguistic knowledge. Improving listening comprehension requires continual attentiveness and interest. .Listening skill can be extended systematically only when students are frequently exposed to a wide range of listening materials with an affective, cultural, social, and psycholinguistic approach. Therefore, teachers should help students learn how to comprehend intactly the overall meaning of intended messages. Practical classroom teaching necessitates a systematic procedure in which students should take part in meaningful tasks and activities. This study purposes to investigate the effects of task-based listening comprehension instruction on improvement of EFL learners' listening comprehension and their attitude and interest. 74 freshmen who enrolled in College English conversation classes in Kongju National University participated in this study. The participants were administered listening comprehension tests and questionnaires. The results show that the listening comprehension instruction through tasks and activities has a positive impact on EFL learners' improvement of listening comprehension and their attitude and interest toward the target language as well.

This study attempts to supplement what is known about the influence of prior knowledge on second language listening comprehension. To do so, the study examines the effect of prior knowledge and language proficiency on the ability of L2 listeners to understand texts. The purpose of an experiment was to determine the effect of topic familiarity on the L2 listening comprehension ability of subjects who varied in L2 listening proficiency level. The subjects (N=117) were selected from a population of college students enrolled in the Departments of English and Business in Korea. English listening proficiency levels were designated on the basis of TOEFL listening scores. Subjects listened twice each to texts (more familiar and less familiar). After listening to each text, a ten-item objective test was administered to test the subjects' comprehension of the information presented in the text. Objective tests were analyzed. using repeated measures analysis. A post hoc test was conducted to identify the means that were significantly different. This study yielded the following results: (1) subjects with high prior knowledge comprehended texts significantly better than did subjects with low prior knowledge; (2) the level of L2 listening proficiency had a significant effect on the L2 listening comprehension of texts, but there was no interaction between prior knowledge and the level of L2 listening proficiency.