The acquisition of verbal passives by Portuguese-speaking children
Some data from comprehension
Previous cross-linguistic research showed that verbal passives are delayed in child grammar. Moreover, Maratsos et al. (1985) found that actional passives elicit more adult-like results than non-actional passives in child English. Hirsch & Wexler (2006) proposed that the adult-like results children achieved with actional passives are due to a resultative adjectival passive analysis, unavailable for non-actional verbs. Alternatively, Snyder & Hyams (2015) proposed that this delay is due to the need of semantic coercion to passivize non-actional verbs. Here we present an experiment testing children’s comprehension of short and long passives of actional and perception verbs in European Portuguese, a language with different auxiliaries for adjectival and verbal passives. The results replicate previous findings for English, despite the difference in auxiliary.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.The passive in European Portuguese
- 3.Experimental task: Predictions, procedure and results
- 4.Discussion and conclusion
-
Acknowledgments
-
Note
-
References
References (41)
References
Babyonyshev, Maria, Jennifer Ganger, David Pesetsky & Kenneth Wexler. 2001. The maturation of grammatical principles: Evidence from Russian unaccusatives. Linguistic Inquiry 32(1). 1–44. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Borer, Hagit & Kenneth Wexler. 1987. The maturation of syntax. In Tom Roeper & Edwin Williams (eds.), Parameter setting, 123–172. Dordrecht: Reidel. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
CETEMPúblico (Corpus de Extractos de Textos Electrónicos MCT/Público). [URL]
Chomsky, Noam. 2001. Derivation by phase. In Michael Kenstowicz (ed.), Ken Hale: A life in language, 1–52. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Collins, Chris. 2005. A smuggling approach to the passive in English. Syntax 8(2). 81–120. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Crain, Stephen, Rosalind Thornton & Keiko Musarugi. 2009. Capturing the evasive passive. Language Acquisition 16(2). 123–133. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Demuth, Katherine. 1989. Maturation and the acquisition of the Sesotho passive. Language 65(1). 56–80. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Duarte, Inês & Fátima Oliveira. 2010. Particípios resultativos. In Ana Maria Brito, Fátima Silva & João Veloso e Alexandra Fiéis (eds.), Textos Seleccionados do XXV Encontro da Associação Portuguesa de Linguística, 397–408. Porto: APL.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Embick, David. 2004. On the structure of resultative participles in English. Linguistic Inquiry 35(3). 355–392. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Estrela, Antónia. 2013. A aquisição da estrutura passiva em Português Europeu. Doctoral dissertation, Universidade Nova de Lisboa. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Fox, Danny & Yosef Grodzinsky. 1998. Children’s passive: A view from the by-phrase. Linguistic Inquiry 29(2). 311–332. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Freitas, Maria João. 1997. Aquisição da Estrutura Silábica do Português Europeu. MA thesis, University of Lisbon.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Gavarró, Anna & Xavier Parramon. 2017. On the adjectival interpretation of passives in acquisition. Lingua 185. 11–24. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Gehrke, Berit & Nino Grillo. 2007. Aspects on passives. In Sylvia Blaho, Eric Schoorlemmer & Luis Vicente (eds.), Proceedings of ConSOLE XIV, 121–142. Leiden: SOLE.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Gehrke, Berit & Nino Grillo. 2009. How to become passive. In Kleanthes K. Grohmann (ed.), Explorations of phase theory: Features, arguments, and interpretation at the interfaces, 231–268. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Hirsch, Chris & Kenneth Wexler. 2006. Children’s passives and their resulting interpretation. The Proceedings of the inaugural conference on Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition – North America, 125–136. University of Connecticut Occasional Papers in Linguistics 4.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Horgan, Dianne. 1975. Language development: A cross-methodological study. Doctoral dissertation, University of Michigan.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Hyams, Nina & William Snyder. 2005. Young children never smuggle: Reflexive clitics and the universal freezing hypothesis. Paper presented at the 30th annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD 30), Boston, MA, November 4–6.
Kiparsky, Paul. 2013. Towards a null theory of the passive. Lingua 125. 7–33. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Koopman, Hilda & Dominique Sportiche. 1991. the position of subjects. Lingua 85. 211–259. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Koring, Loes, Pim Mak, Iris Mulders & Eric Reuland. 2018. Processing intransitive verbs: How do children differ from adults?. Language Learning and Development 14(1). 72–94. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Lima Júnior, João & Marina Augusto. 2015. Is ‘smuggling’ really necessary? The most recent analyses of passive sentences reconsidered in terms of phasehood and cyclic movement. ReVEL 9. 62–91.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Manzini, Rita. 2017. Passive, smuggling and the by-phrase. In Nicholas LaCara, Keir Moulton & Anne-Michelle Tessier (eds.), A schrift to fest Kyle Johnson, 233–244. Linguistics Open Access Publications 1. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Amherst.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Maratsos, Michael, Dana Fox, Judith Becker & Mary Anne Chalkley. 1985. Semantic restrictions in children’s passives. Cognition 19(2). 167–191. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Müller, Gereon. 1998. Incomplete category fronting. Dordrecht: Kluwer. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
O’Brien, Karen, Elaine Grolla & Diane Lillo-Martin. 2006. Long passives are understood by young children. In David Bamman, Tatiana Magnitskaia & Colleen Zaller (eds.), Proceedings of the 30th annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD 30), 441–451. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Orfitelli, Robyn. 2012. Argument intervention in the acquisition of A-movement. Doctoral dissertation, UCLA.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Pierce, Amy. 1992. The acquisition of passives in Spanish and the question of A-chain maturation. Language Acquisition 1. 55–81. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Santos, Ana Lúcia, Aida Cardoso & Maria João Freitas. 2014. CEPLEXicon – A lexicon of child European Portuguese. ELRA ID: ELRA-L0094.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Santos, Ana Lúcia, Michel Généreux, Aida Cardoso, Celina Agostinho & Silvana Abalada. 2014. A corpus of European Portuguese child and child-directed speech. In Nicoletta Calzolari, Khalid Choukri, Thierry Declerck, Hrafn Loftsson, Bente Maegaard, Joseph Mariani, Asuncion Moreno, Jan Odijk & Stelios Piperidis (eds.), Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC 2014), 1488–1491. Reykjavik: European Language Resources Association.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Snyder, William & Emma Nguyen. 2017. It’s hard to coerce: A unified account of raising-past-experiencers and passives in child English. Paper presented at the 13th Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition conference (GALA 13), Palma de Mallorca, Spain, September 7–9.
Snyder, William & Nina Hyams. 2015. Minimality effects in children’s passives. In Elisa Di Domenico, Cornelia Hamann & Simona Matteini (eds.), Structures, strategies and beyond: Essays in honour of Adriana Belletti, 343–368. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Snyder, William, Nina Hyams & Paola Crisma. 1995. Romance auxiliary selection with reflexive clitics: Evidence for early knowledge of unaccusativity. In Eve V. Clark (ed.) Proceedings of the 26th Annual Child Language Research Forum, 127–136. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Stromswold, Karin. 1996. Does the VP-internal stage really exist?. Paper presented at the 21st Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD 26), Boston, MA, November 2–4.
Terzi, Arhonto & Kenneth Wexler. 2002. A-chains and s-homophones in children’s grammar: Evidence from Greek passives. North East Linguistics Society 32(2). 519–538.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Volpato, Francesca, Laura Verin & Anna Cardinaletti. 2016. The comprehension and production of verbal passives by Italian preschool-age children. Applied Psycholinguistics 36. 901–931. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Wexler, Kenneth. 2004. Theory of phasal development: Perfection in child grammar. MITWPL 48. 159–209.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Weinberg, Amy. 1987. Comments on Borer and Wexler. In Thomas Roeper & Edwin Williams (eds.), Parameter setting, 173–187. Dordrecht: Reidel Publishing. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)