Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Transitive/intransitive'

The purpose of this thesis is to examine idiomatic structures with ki in the ki-wo [transitive verb] and ki-ga [intransitive verb] constructions. It is argued that for Japanese language learners, it is crucial to be able to understand and produce ki idioms, because they are frequently used in everyday speech. There are often misconceptions regarding ki in the West for those who are fans of Japanese culture due to the influence of martial arts and anime, which paint ki as a spiritual energy that can be controlled and developed. However, upon examining the above mentioned idiomatic structures with ki, it is clear that ki can be expressed as both controllable by the subject of ki (transitive), as well as a thing that acts of its own accord and is spontaneous (intransitive). This thesis somewhat corroborates the studies of W. M. Jacobson, Zoe Pei Sui Luk , and Yoshihiko Ikegami by arguing that intransitive constructions are often used in Japanese, and examining both transitive and intransitive expressions with ki is significant to understanding the meanings produced in ki expressions. It is hoped that analyzing 37 transitive and intransitive idiomatic structures with ki will help Japanese language learners not only understand the syntactic and semantic aspects of transitivity in the Japanese language, but also to help these L2 learners conceptualize the abstract noun ki, which can be defined in so many different ways in a dictionary.

In this thesis, I have examined intransitive verbs with transitive counterparts in Japanese. In accordance with the differences in their syntactic and semantic characteristics, I have considered that they are categorized into two, so-called ergative and middle verbs. There are various theories concerning "ergative" and "middle" verbs, especially "ergative" verbs since the term ergative is somewhat confusing. For instance, some linguists consider "ergative" verbs as underlyingly transitive verbs while others consider them as lexically intransitive verbs. I have hypothesized that "ergative" verbs are lexically intransitive and "middle" verbs are derived intransitive, and have attempted to support intransitivity or transitivity of those verbs from syntactic and semantic points of view, such as concerning passive possibility, implied agent, and so on. For example, "ergative" verbs seem to be passivized whereas "middle" verbs do not seem to be passivized since potentialization, which derives "middle" verbs, has a close relationship with passive. "Ergative" verbs do not necessarily have implied agent whereas "middle" verbs always seem to have implied agent and suggest underlying agent. My analysis seems to reveal the difference in transitivity between "ergative" and "middle" verbs and supports my hypothesis.
Arts, Faculty of
Asian Studies, Department of
Graduate

Communication Sciences
M.A.
Research in communication disorders suggests that training linguistically complex forms will generalize to untrained, simpler forms with similar structural properties (see Thompson, 2007 for review). The present study investigated generalization patterns from transitive verbs to two classes of intransitive verbs following administration of Verb Network Strengthening Treatment (VNeST; Edmonds, Nadeau & Kiran, 2009). Based on the Argument Structure Complexity Hypothesis (ASCH; Thompson, 2003), it was predicted that greater generalization would occur to unergatives because unergatives bear a structural relationship to transitive verbs and unaccusatives do not. Results at post-treatment supported the hypothesis with both intransitive verb types showing generalization and slightly higher effect sizes observed for unergative than for unaccusative verbs. At maintenance, this pattern was not maintained due to improvements in production of unaccusative verbs. Results support the findings of Edmonds et al. (2009) that administration of VNeST results in gains on measures of untrained, semantically related verbs as well as standardized measures of lexical retrieval and connected speech. These results also suggest that training transitive verbs results in slight generalization to untrained intransitive verbs; however, it is inconclusive whether unergative and unaccusatives intransitives show differential improvement.
Temple University--Theses

Basée sur une analyse contrastive, cette thèse aborde la structure verbale en français et en russe. Son objectif est d’établir un regard réflexif sur les deux langues dans le but de déterminer la différence et la ressemblance dans leur construction verbale. Explorant la question des verbes de structure différente des langues concernées, elle tente également de trouver les difficultés provoquées par cette différence à l’apprentissage. Ainsi, dans cette recherche, on parle des verbes problématiques sous un angle aussi didactique que linguistique. Composé de trois chapitres, ce travail étudie dans un premier temps le statut transitif/intransitif des verbes dans les deux langues en traitant l’approche traditionnelle et moderne et met en place une étude contrastive par rapport à la question de valence. On explore la construction verbale avec complément dans le deuxième chapitre de la recherche. Dans cette partie, l’analyse parallèle des verbes est effectuée afin de repérer leur fonctionnement selon les moyens grammaticaux de chaque langue. Et finalement, la comparaison de chaque verbe considéré problématique à l’apprentissage des deux langues suivie de tableaux fait partie du dernier chapitre. La production des tests préliminaires effectués auprès des apprenants russophones constitue également cette partie pour mieux comprendre la difficulté de ces derniers lors de la communication
Based on a contrastive analysis, this thesis deals with the verbal structure in French and Russian. Its objective is to establish a reflexive look at the two languages in order to determine the difference and the similarity in their verbal construction. Exploring the question of the verbs of different structure, it also tries to find the difficulties caused by this difference in learning. Thus, in this research, problematic verbs are spoken of in a didactic as well as linguistic angle. This work, composed of three chapters, speaks first of all about the transitive/intransitive status of verbs in both languages by treating the traditional and modern approach and sets up a contrastive study in relation to the valence question. Verbal construction is explored with complement in the second chapter of the research. In this part, the parallel analysis of the verbs is performed in order to identify their functioning according to the grammatical means of each language. And finally, the comparison of each verb considered problematical to the learning in both languages followed by tables took the part of the last chapter. The production of preliminary tests with Russian-speaking learners is also part of this work in order to better understand the difficulties of the latter during the communication

Esta dissertação é resultado de uma pesquisa que investigou o comportamento linguístico de crianças falantes nativas de português brasileiro com relação a sentenças absolutas, que consistem em uma alternância na valência de verbos transitivos encontrada especificamente no PB, tal como Eu aperto esse botão [do videogame] e, olha lá, a bola chutou. Segundo Negrão & Viotti (2010), nas absolutas o argumento que representaria a energia responsável pela causa do evento não está presente e nem chega a ser conceitualizado. Não há, portanto, a presença de uma força indutora (Negrão & Viotti, 2010). Desenvolvemos dois experimentos: um de tarefa de produção eliciada e outro de julgamento de aceitabilidade. Nossas previsões são: (a) as absolutas serão mais produzidas com a ausência da força indutora, que seria o argumento agente; (b) alguns verbos proporcionarão mais a produção de absolutas que outros, por estarem mais propensos à supressão da força indutora; e (c) crianças produzirão mais absolutas do que passivas visto que as absolutas são menos complexas estruturalmente. As condições testadas foram: presença/ausência de um agente e tipo de verbo (mais ou menos propenso à supressão do agente). Os resultados sugerem que ambas as condições influenciaram nas respostas dos participantes, de modo que os contextos sem agente e os contextos com verbos mais propensos à supressão do agente se mostraram mais propícios às sentenças absolutas. Por fim, as crianças mais novas testadas produziram mais absolutas do que passivas, o que indica que a absoluta, por ser menos complexa, é uma estrutura mais acessível às crianças.
This dissertation is the result of a research that has investigated the linguistic behavior of Brazilian Portuguese speaking children in relation to absolutive sentences, which consist of a verb valency alternation found specifically in BP, such as Eu aperto esse botão [do videogame] e, olha lá, a bola chutou (I press this button [in the videogame] and, look, the ball kicked [in the sense that the ball was kicked]). According to Negrão & Viotti (2010), in the absolutive constructions, the argument that would represent the energy responsible for the cause of the event is not present. Actually, it is not even conceptualized. Therefore, there is no driving force (Negrão & Viotti, 2010). We developed two experiments: an elicited production task and an acceptability judgment task. Our predictions are: (a) the absolutive sentences will be produced more often in contexts without a driving force, which would be, in this case, the agent; (b) more absolutive sentences will be produced with some verbs than others, because they are more likely to suppress the driving force; and (c) children will produce more absolutive constructions than passives since the absolutive construction is structurally simpler. The tested conditions were: presence/absence of an agent and verb type (more or less likely to suppress the agent). The results suggest that both conditions influenced participants answers, so that the contexts without an agent and the contexts with verbs more likely to suppress the agent were more supportive environments for the absolutive constructions. Finally, the younger children we tested produced more absolutive constructions than passives, which indicates that, as a less complex structure, the absolutive is more accessible to children.

The focus of this study is the opposition of Ludwik Fleck to the logical positivism. The main interest focuses on the mutability of knowledge and the inherent problems of incommensura-bility, as well as on Fleck´s notion of reality. Fleck emphasizes a rational and continuous de-velopment of knowledge, in contrast to Thomas Kuhn´s discontinuous and irrational devel-opment, and rejects all forms of reality independent of human beings.

Fleck´s monograph Entstehung und Entwicklung einer Tatsache is a rich and multifac-eted inquiry into the nature of knowledge, emphasizing the social and historical aspects of the epistemology of science at the expense of certain logical precepts. With his concepts thought style and thought collective, Fleck is generally acknowledged as a precursor to Kuhn´s con-cepts of paradigm and scientific community. Fleck maintains a relativistic view of science and develops a comparative epistemology which challenges the logical positivists in many re-spects. He dismisses every form of reality and has therefore been regarded as an idealist, al-though there are certain aspects to his epistemology which point toward an implicit ontology based upon his idea of the passive components of knowledge.

The chief epistemological works of Fleck and his contemporary Karl Popper were published within a year of each other, 1934 and 1935, respectively, by which Popper had left the Continent to eventually become one of the leading British philosophers, while Fleck spent several years during the Second World War as a prisoner in Nazi camps. Both were firmly opposed to the logical positivism, one as a critical rationalist, the other as a sceptical relativist. Fleck was also a forerunner to the constructivist ideas and the Strong Programme.

The word ”incommensurability” has been ascribed Kuhn but the term had already been used by Fleck in 1927. The ”incommensurability thesis” dominates Kuhn´s notion of scientific revolutions and is accordingly the reason why scientific progress is considered an irrational process. The debate on the incommensurability thesis has continued to interest epistemologists and philosophers of science and many solutions have been suggested, some in line with the one proposed by Fleck.

碩士
輔仁大學
日本語文學系碩士班
106
In Japanese, there are two types of the same verb referred to as transitive and intransitive verbs, two of which are grammatically different and often lead to different meaning. As a consequence, the dissertation focuses on situations in which transitive and intransitive verbs are wrongly used. The dissertation collects examples of the Japanese verb misuse as the main targets for this study, and is expected to make some contribution to Taiwanese learners of the Japanese language. In the dissertation, the research is fully based on the collected examples of transitive and intransitive verbs misuse from CTLJ provided by National Cheng Kung University, and the verb misuse are classified into the following four types: ①Confusion using transitive or intransitive verbs ②Japanese particles, “ga” and “wo” ③Verb usage in different tenses ④Wrongly-used words, situations and examples of which will be listed and analyzed. There are five chapters in this dissertation. The first chapter is the introduction elaborating the motivation and the purpose of writing this dissertation as well as defining the range of this study and research methods. The second chapter is regarding to the reference discussion. The dissertation is according to the study referring to transitive and intransitive verbs and Japanese particles, “ga” and “wo”, that has been done in advance. The textbook, “Mina No Nihongo”, is taken as reference in the third chapter, which analyzes actual verbs in transitive and intransitive forms, sentences under various situations and tendency to using them. CTLJ is taken as the study target in the forth chapter. Based on the following three perspectives: definition of transitive and intransitive verbs, definition of Japanese particles, reasons why learners misuse the verbs, there are four points in turn analyzed from the 219 collected examples listed in CTLJ. The four points include confusion using transitive or intransitive verbs, Japanese particles, “ga” and “wo”, verb usage in different tenses, and lastly, words that are wrongly used. The fifth chapter is the conclusion of this dissertation. It elaborates the achievement of this study, suggestions for Japanese learning, and study topics afterwards. The study has mainly stated that: 1. Among the misuse rates of transitive and intransitive verbs under four circumstances, the highest goes to “verb usage in different tenses” with the rate of 43.84%. The second highest is “confusion using them”, representing 25.57% of all. The third, “Japanese particles” and the last one “Wrongly-used words” stand for 16.90% and 13.70% respectively. 2. Among all the transitive and intransitive verbs usage rate based on the four types of verbs misuse, the highest goes to “intransitive verb usage in different tenses” with the rate of 30.14%. The second highest is “transitive verb usage in different tenses”, representing 13.70% of all. The third, “Wrongly-used words of intransitive verbs” and the last one “Wrongly-used words of transitive verbs” stand for 7.76% and 5.94% respectively.

碩士
輔仁大學
日本語文學系
91
The present thesis aims to distinguish between transitive and intransitive verbs in Japanese with regard to their phonetic shapes (i.e. verbal suffixes), argument structures (i.e. valency), case particles (e.g. nominative, accusative and dative cases), and thematic relations (i.e. semantic roles played by arguments). In the process of our discussion, the questions such as “transitivization” of intransitive verbs and “intransitivization” of transitive verbs are also touched upon. Though our methodology is mainly based on the descriptive grammar of Japanese, the generative framework is also resorted whenever necessary. The thesis consists of six chapters. Following a brief introduction in Chapter Ⅰ.Chapter Ⅱ investigates the transitive-intransitive alternations according as they have a corresponding counterpart, and if they do, whether the correspondence is one-to-one or one-to-many. Then, Chapter Ⅲ discusses the transitive-intransitive distinction in terms of argument structure, thematic relation and lexical conceptual structure. While Chapter Ⅳ observes the concept of transitivity from a semantic point of view, coupled with the question of the prototypicality of transitive and intransitive verbs. Finally, Chapter Ⅴ deals with the X-bar structure analysis involved with transitive and intransitive verbs, further exploring into the question of case-marking and the formation of complex predicate. The conclusion reached by our thesis is：neither the phonetic shape nor the syntactic behavior (including case-marking, passivization, causativization and various other constructions) cannot serve as the conclusive criteria for distinguishing Japanese transitive and intransitive verbs. In fact, the distinction is by no means clear-cut, but rather constitutes a continuum spanning between typical transitive verbs and typical intransitive verbs, with non-typical ones gradually proceeding in between.

碩士
國立臺灣大學
日本語文學研究所
99
The purpose of the current paper is to analyze the discrepancies that may exist between the “potential expressions in the absence of grammatical marking”, where sentences consist of intransitive verbs and the “potential expressions in paired transitive verbs”. This study departs from other previous studies and turns instead to examine the characteristics of intransitive verbs that appear in most of the “potential expressions in the absence of grammatical marking” from the viewpoint of “form”. According to the research of the study, more than half of the “potential expressions in the absence of grammatical marking” are presented by intransitive verbs with -ar- suffix, hence a highly positive correlation of the “potential expressions in the absence of grammatical marking” and “intransitive verbs with -ar- suffix” has so far been confirmed. Since intransitive verbs with -ar- suffix creates “decausativizaion” in a sentence, which suggests that an intransitive verb has implied an agent in a sentence without referring to that agent explicitly. Thus the paper proposes that an intransitive verb which features a potential expressions in the absence of grammatical marking should possess such characteristic. However, a potential expressions in the absence of grammatical marking is manifested in the result produced by the intended actions acted by the agent. Therefore, if a sentence can be qualified as having a potential expressions in the absence of grammatical marking depends not only on the characteristic of the intransitive verb, but also on the intention of the agent explicated in that sentence. The intention of the agent can be expressed by conditional sentences, negative sentences or adverbial phrases which are aimed to describe a verb or an adjective. Thus, a narrator declares the truth of an event by seeing if the intention of the agent is completed. Lastly, the paper compiles the related analysis and contrasts of “potential expressions in the absence of grammatical marking” and “potential expressions in paired transitive verbs” as follows. What both have in common is using conditional sentence(s) to express the agent’s intention(s). Furthermore, the completion of an event can be affected by external conditions in the circumstance and the internal condition of the agent. The characteristic of an intransitive verb appeared in the “potential expressions in the absence of grammatical marking” manifests its difference from the other potential expressions through making the object shown in the sentence whereas the agent is not shown in the surface structure of an article. Thus, when it turns to the discussion of an event, the ability of the agent is overlooked. Therefore the difference of the two lies in whether the narrator is actually the agent who has the controlling capability to influence the development of an event. In sentences that express the “potential expressions in the absence of grammatical marking”, the controlling ability of the narrator skips the attention because the focus is on the changes of an object. Hence, when it turns to the discussion of an event, the capacity of the agent is overlooked. To sum up, the emphasis of the “potential expressions in the absence of grammatical marking” is the result of an event. Conversely, in a sentence that expresses the potential expression in paired transitive verbs, the narrator is actually the agent and has the controlling ability, and thereby when an event is being discussed, the agent’s ability is emphasized. We can thus incur that the emphases of the “potential expressions in paired transitive verbs” are two-fold: 1. the agent’s ability of controlling an event; and 2. the agent should be responsible for an event since the completion of an event lies in the agent’s controlling ability.

碩士
東吳大學
日本語文學系
93
We’ve often heard that even though someone remembers the contrast between intransitive and transitive verbs, he still has trouble when using them. The purpose of this study is to research the use of Japanese intransitive and transitive verbs through the actual use by Japanese learners in Taiwan and native speakers in order to understand that in what situation the use of intransitive and transitive verbs by Japanese learners in Taiwan is different from native speaker and it is hard or easy to learn. In this study, I made reference to existing researches and organized that under what situation and reason native speakers use Japanese intransitive and transitive verbs. Then, according to the result, I designed questionnaires based on intransitive and transitive verbs to Japanese learners in Taiwan and native speakers and analyzed the difference and reason between them on the basis of the result of questionnaires in order to understand the learning status of Japanese learners in Taiwan about intransitive and transitive verbs. That is the main purpose of this study. The result of questionnaires reveals that there are huge differences in the use of intransitive and transitive verbs between Japanese learners in Taiwan and native speakers. Basically, Japanese learners in Taiwan use intransitive verbs to show the change of subject and use transitive verbs to show the action or behavior of subject, which is a little difference with native speakers. That is an easy part for learning. However, native speakers use transitive verbs to express emotions, such as apologies and guilt, and use intransitive verbs when they do not point out who causes foresaid results or changes, which is hard to learn for Japanese learners in Taiwan. We can clearly understand the above mentioned from this study.

碩士
東吳大學
日本語文學系
104
This study aims at further understanding how Japanese learners in Taiwan pick up intransitive and transitive verbs, and in what order they learn those verbs. Foreign Japanese learners usually start learning intransitive and transitive verbs from early stage, but many of them still have difficulties using those verbs correctly even when reaching intermediate level. So it’s quite clear that learning intransitive and transitive verbs is quite a difficult task for those whose native tongue doesn’t share similar grammar. Therefore, by using the three and a half year composition data from LARP at SCU (Language Acquisition Research Project at Soochow University) , I aim to research on how the intransitive and transitive verbs are used in the composition, in which stages are those verbs used and thus find out where the difficulties in learning it lies. This study adopts the intransitive and transitive verbs from “Standard tests for Japanese Proficiency Test, revised edition”, and the definition of Okutu(1976)as the standard for researching. This study is divided into five chapters. The first chapter is the introduction which explains the motivation and the purpose of the research. The second chapter is the precedence research, in which I collected and categorized the relative studies of the intransitive and transitive verbs mentioned in Japanese linguistic and Japanese teaching. The third chapter is the research outline, explaining the subject and the methods applied in the research. The fourth chapter is the analysis, in which five subjects are being analyzed in the attempt for finding why the subjects make mistakes when using intransitive and transitive verbs. The fifth chapter is the conclusion, a conclusive comment is made for the condition on how Japanese learners use intransitive and transitive verbs in their composition, and how the result of the research can be used in further Japanese teaching related studies.

Cette recherche a pour but d’évaluer le rôle de la vision et de la proprioception pour la perception et le contrôle de l’orientation spatiale de la main chez l’humain. L’orientation spatiale de la main est une composante importante des mouvements d’atteinte et de saisie. Toutefois, peu d’attention a été portée à l’étude de l’orientation spatiale de la main dans la littérature. À notre connaissance, cette étude est la première à évaluer spécifiquement l’influence des informations sensorielles et de l’expérience visuelle pour la perception et le contrôle en temps réel de l'orientation spatiale de la main pendant le mouvement d’atteinte naturel vers une cible stationnaire. Le premier objectif était d’étudier la contribution de la vision et de la proprioception dans des tâches de perception et de mouvement d’orientation de la main. Dans la tâche de perception (orientation-matching task), les sujets devaient passivement ou activement aligner une poignée de forme rectangulaire avec une cible fixée dans différentes orientations. Les rotations de l’avant-bras et du poignet étaient soit imposées par l’expérimentateur, soit effectuées par les sujets. Dans la tâche de mouvement d’orientation et d’atteinte simultanées (letter posting task 1), les sujets ont réalisé des mouvements d’atteinte et de rotation simultanées de la main afin d’insérer la poignée rectangulaire dans une fente fixée dans les mêmes orientations. Les tâches ont été réalisées dans différentes conditions sensorielles où l’information visuelle de la cible et de la main était manipulée. Dans la tâche perceptive, une augmentation des erreurs d’orientation de la main a été observée avec le retrait des informations visuelles concernant la cible et/ou ou la main. Lorsque la vision de la main n’était pas permise, il a généralement été observé que les erreurs d’orientation de la main augmentaient avec le degré de rotation nécessaire pour aligner la main et la cible. Dans la tâche de mouvement d’orientation et d’atteinte simultanées, les erreurs ont également augmenté avec le retrait des informations visuelles. Toutefois, les patrons d’erreurs étaient différents de ceux observés dans la tâche de perception, et les erreurs d’orientation n’ont pas augmenté avec le degré de rotation nécessaire pour insérer la poignée dans la fente. En absence de vision de la main, il a été observé que les erreurs d’orientation étaient plus petites dans la tâche de mouvement que de perception, suggérant l’implication de la proprioception pour le contrôle de l’orientation spatiale de la main lors des mouvements d’orientation et d’atteinte simultanées. Le deuxième objectif de cette recherche était d’étudier l’influence de la vision et de la proprioception dans le contrôle en temps réel de l’orientation spatiale de la main. Dans une tâche d’orientation de la main suivie d’une atteinte manuelle (letter posting task 2), les sujets devaient d’abord aligner l’orientation de la même poignée avec la fente fixée dans les mêmes orientations, puis réaliser un mouvement d’atteinte sans modifier l’orientation initiale de la main. Une augmentation des erreurs initiales et finales a été observée avec le retrait des informations visuelles. Malgré la consigne de ne pas changer l’orientation initiale de la main, une diminution des erreurs d’orientation a généralement été observée suite au mouvement d’atteinte, dans toutes les conditions sensorielles testées. Cette tendance n’a pas été observée lorsqu’aucune cible explicite n’était présentée et que les sujets devaient conserver l’orientation de départ de la main pendant le mouvement d’atteinte (mouvement intransitif; letter-posting task 3). La diminution des erreurs pendant l’atteinte manuelle transitive vers une cible explicite (letter-posting task 2), malgré la consigne de ne pas changer l’orientation de la main pendant le mouvement, suggère un mécanisme de corrections automatiques pour le contrôle en temps réel de l’orientation spatiale de la main pendant le mouvement d’atteinte naturel vers une cible stationnaire. Le troisième objectif de cette recherche était d’évaluer la contribution de l’expérience visuelle pour la perception et le contrôle de l’orientation spatiale de la main. Des sujets aveugles ont été testés dans les mêmes tâches de perception et de mouvement. De manière générale, les sujets aveugles ont présenté les mêmes tendances que les sujets voyants testés dans la condition proprioceptive (sans vision), suggérant que l’expérience visuelle n’est pas nécessaire pour le développement d’un mécanisme de correction en temps réel de l’orientation spatiale de la main basé sur la proprioception.
The goal of this research was to study the contribution of vision and proprioception to the perception and control of hand orientation in human subjects. Spatial orientation of the hand is an important component of reaching and grasping movements. However, not much attention has been given to spatial hand orientation in the literature. To our knowledge, this study is the first to specifically investigate the influence of sensory information for the perception and on-line control of hand orientation during natural reaching movement to stationary targets. The first objective of this research was to study the contribution of vision and proprioception in perceptual orientation-matching and motor letter posting tasks. In the perceptual orientation-matching task, subjects attempted to passively or actively align a match handle, to a target that was fixed in different orientations. In the passive perceptual task, passive rotations of the forearm and wrist were imposed by the experimenter; whereas in the active perceptual task, the rotations were actively executed by the subjects. In letter posting task 1, subjects simultaneously reached and rotated the right hand to insert a match handle into a target slot fixed in the same orientations. The tasks were performed in different sensory conditions where the visual information about the target and the hand was manipulated. In the perceptual orientation-matching task, augmentation of hand orientation errors was observed with the withdrawal of visual information related to either the target and/or the hand. When full vision was not allowed, hand orientation errors were larger overall when larger rotations of the wrist were required to match the target, whether the rotations were made actively by the subject or were imposed passively by the experimenter. In letter posting task 1, augmentation of hand orientation errors was also observed with the withdrawal of visual information related to either the target and/or the hand. However, errors patterns were different from those observed in the perceptual task, and hand orientation errors were not larger for larger target orientations. Without vision of the hand, final hand orientation errors were smaller overall in letter-posting task 1 than in the orientation-matching task. This suggests the implication of the proprioceptive information for the control of spatial hand orientation during reach-and-orient movements. The second objective of this research was to study the influence of vision and proprioception in on-line control of spatial hand orientation. In letter posting task 2, subjects first aligned their hand to the angle of the target and then reached to it with the instruction not to change their initial hand orientation. The augmentation of initial and final errors was observed with the withdrawal of vision. Although subjects were instructed to not change their hand orientation, in all sensory condition tested, hand orientation changed overall during reaching in a way that reduced the initial orientation errors. This trend did not occur when there was no explicitly defined target toward which the subjects reached (letter-posting task 3; intransitive movement). The reduction in hand orientation errors during transitive reach in letter-posting task 2, even when told not to change it, suggests the engagement of an automatic error correction mechanism for hand orientation during natural reaching movements toward stationary targets. The third objective of this research was to investigate the contribution of visual experience to the perception and control of spatial orientation of the hand. Blind subjects were tested in the same perceptual and motor tasks. Overall, no differences were observed between performance of blind subjects and normally-sighted subjects tested without vision (proprioceptive condition), suggesting that prior visual experience is not necessary for the development of an on-line error correction mechanism for hand orientation guided by proprioceptive inputs.