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R B Wilbur

Publications and source records attributed to R B Wilbur.

6 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1976

Pronominalization in the language of deaf students.

Four hundred and eighty deaf students (age 10 to 18 years) and 60 hearing children (age eight to 10 years) were required to complete a stimulus sentence by selecting the appropriate pronoun from a list provided. The results indicated that subject and object case pronouns were easier than possessive adjectives, which were in turn easier than possessive pronouns and reflexives. Correct use of relative pronouns was the most difficult for both deaf and hearing subjects. Generalizations about the acquisition of the pronoun system must be limited, as it appeared that pronouns are mastered on a pronoun-by-pronoun basis rather than by categories (person, number, case) for both the deaf and hearing subjects.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1976

Complement structures in the language of deaf students.

Four hundred and twenty-seven deaf students (age 10 to 19 years) and 60 hearing children (age eight to 10 years) judged the grammaticality of sample sentences which contained infinitival or gerundive complements. Results indicated improvement with increasing age for deaf students. Even the youngest hearing students consistently obtained higher scores than most of the deaf students. Although the function of the complement (as subject or object) did not make a difference in performance, the type of complement did. POSS-ing complements were easier than for-to complements. Verb type also influenced performance.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1976

Some aspects of the verb system in the language of deaf students.

Approximately 480 deaf students (age 10 to 19 years) and 60 hearing students (age eight to 10 years) were asked to judge the grammaticality of sentences containing auxiliary verbs, of sentences where the verb had been deleted, and of sentences in which the verb tense was not marked. The results indicated that deaf students have considerable difficulty with the verb system of English. This difficulty was most pronounced in the formation of tense and voice and in agreement in number and tense. A possible ordering for the acquisition of tense did emerge; from earliest to latest it is: simple past, future, present progressive, perfective, and passive. Improvement in grammaticality judgments appeared to come from an increase in recognition that incorrect sentences were ungrammatical.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Perceptual evidence against internal structure in American Sign Language syllables.

Syllables in spoken languages have been argued to have an internal structure which may cluster the consonants and vowels into subgroups. The most commonly used subgroups are the Onset (initial consonants) and Rhyme (vowel and remaining consonants), with the further possibility of dividing the Rhyme into Nucleus (the vowel and any on- or off-glides) and the Coda (the final consonants). Although linguistic debate continues about the exact formulation of such syllable models, the evidence is clear that listeners identify rhythmic beats at a particular point inside the syllable, namely at the release of the initial consonants into the following linguistically stressed vowels (referred to as the syllable peak, assumed to be part of the Nucleus). To determine whether such loci would be identified for syllables in American Sign Language, deaf native signers, hearing native signers, and hearing subjects unfamiliar with sign language were asked to tap to videotaped signed stimuli. Analysis of the tap locations in signed syllables revealed a relatively flat distribution across the syllable for all three groups and for individual subjects. The absence of syllable peak perception is discussed in relation to the motoric characteristics of sign production.

Adult↗