Acquisition of Passives and Transitivity Hierarchy
2
조회
0
다운로드
0
인용
0
참고문헌
키워드
초록
This study aims to offer an account of the acquisition of passives, which holds that children prefer constructing a structure with low transitivity, and thus Transitivity Hierarchy in Hopper and Thompson’s (1980) sense could account for the developmental order of passives. English has two types of passives, adjectival (lexical) passives and verbal (structural) ones. Child English data demonstrate that adjectival passives are acquired earlier than verbal ones. In generative grammar, researchers have contended that verbal passives involve syntactic movement of an argument, creating a chain, while adjectival ones do not, and thus early child English lacks an A(rgument)-chain, which matures later according to preprogrammed biological program. This is the ‘Maturation Hypothesis’ proposed and supported by Kenneth Wexler and his colleagues’ serial works. However, English-speaking children produce unaccusative sentences quite early, which also form an A-chain (Tomasello 1992, Han 1997). The proponents of the maturation program provided explanation for such apparently contradictory evidence, which is not without problems and counterevidence. I argue in this study that an alternative approach on the basis of the notion of ‘transitivity’ might provide a better account of the developmental gap between verbal passives and unaccusatives. That is, young children develop and/or utilize adjectival passives and unaccusatives earlier, which are low in transitivity. We will come to a conclusion that the notion of transitivity gives us a clue to explain the developmental pattern of syntactic structure in child language, along with other influential factors.
Abstract
This study aims to offer an account of the acquisition of passives, which holds that children prefer constructing a structure with low transitivity, and thus Transitivity Hierarchy in Hopper and Thompson’s (1980) sense could account for the developmental order of passives. English has two types of passives, adjectival (lexical) passives and verbal (structural) ones. Child English data demonstrate that adjectival passives are acquired earlier than verbal ones. In generative grammar, researchers have contended that verbal passives involve syntactic movement of an argument, creating a chain, while adjectival ones do not, and thus early child English lacks an A(rgument)-chain, which matures later according to preprogrammed biological program. This is the ‘Maturation Hypothesis’ proposed and supported by Kenneth Wexler and his colleagues’ serial works. However, English-speaking children produce unaccusative sentences quite early, which also form an A-chain (Tomasello 1992, Han 1997). The proponents of the maturation program provided explanation for such apparently contradictory evidence, which is not without problems and counterevidence. I argue in this study that an alternative approach on the basis of the notion of ‘transitivity’ might provide a better account of the developmental gap between verbal passives and unaccusatives. That is, young children develop and/or utilize adjectival passives and unaccusatives earlier, which are low in transitivity. We will come to a conclusion that the notion of transitivity gives us a clue to explain the developmental pattern of syntactic structure in child language, along with other influential factors.
참고문헌 (36)
- Ayoun, D., "Parameter Setting in Language Acquisition" (2003), Continuum Press
- Babyonyshev, M., "The maturation of grammatical principles: Evidence from Russian unaccusatives", Linguistic Inquiry, 32, pp.1~44 (2001)
- Belletti, A., "The Case of unaccusatives", Linguistic Inquiry, 18, pp.1~34 (1988)
- Bever, T., "The cognitive basis for linguistic structures In: Cognition and the development of language", pp.279~362 (1970), Wiley
- Borer, H., "The maturation of syntax In: Parameters Setting", pp.123~172 (1987), Foris
- Borer, H., "Bi-unique relations and the maturation of grammatical principles", Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 10, pp.147~189 (1992)
- Bowers, J., "Transitivity", Linguistic Inquiry, 33, pp.183~224 (2002)
- Burzio, L., "Italian Syntax: A Government-Binding Approach" (1986), Reidel
- Chomky, N., "Lectures on Government and Binding" (1981), Foris
- Chomky, N., "Knowledge of Language: Its Nature, Origin, and Use" (1986), Praeger
- Choi, S., "Early development of verb structures and caregiver input in Korean: Two case studies", International Journal of Bilingualism, 3, pp.241~265 (1999)
- Crain, S., "Competence and performance in child language In: Language and Cognition: A Developmental Perspective", pp.141~171 (1993), Ablex
- Felix, S., "Cognition and language growth" (1987), Foris
- Fox, D., "Children’s passive: A view from the by-phrase", Linguistic Inquiry, 35, pp.311~332 (1998)
- Fukuda, S., "Transitivity bias and acquisition of verbs with transitivity alternation in English and Japanese" (2005), UCSD
- Fukuda, S., "Early verbs in Korean and Japanese children: Transitive or intransitivebias? Paper presented at The 17th Japanese Korean Linguistics Conference (JKL 17). University of California, Los Angeles", ~ (2007)
- Ganger, J. B., "Genes take over when the input fails: Findings from a twin study of the passive. Online Proceedings of the 27th Boston University Conference on Language Development", ~ (2005)
- Gordon, P., "Verb-based versus class-based accounts of actionality effects in children’s comprehension of passives", Cognition, 36, pp.227~254 (1990)
- Guasti, M. T., "Language Acquisition: The Growth of Grammar" (2004), MIT Press
- Han, H., "Development of Functional Categories in Child Korean", 박사, pp.1997
- Hogan, D., "The development of the full passive", Journal of Child Language, 5, pp.65~80 (1978)
- Hopper, P. J., "Transitivity in grammar and discourse", Language, 56, pp.251~299 (1980)
- Jaeggli, O., "Passive", Linguistic Inquiry, 17, pp.587~622 (1986)
- Jung, W., "A pragmatic analysis of English passives in second language acquisition. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Conference on Pragmatics and Language Learning. Urbana, Illinois", ~ (1996)
- Park, S.-D., "Parameters of Passive Constructions in English and Korean", 박사, pp.2005
- Pierce, E. A., "The Acquisition of Passives in Spanish and the Question of A-Chain Maturation", Language Acquisition, 2, pp.55~81 (1992)
- Radford, A., "Syntactic theory and the acquisition of the English syntax" (1990), Blackwell
- Riddle, E., "A functional analysis of pseudo-passives", Linguistics and Philosophy, 6, pp.527~563 (1983)
- Schacter, J., "An Error in Error Analysis", Language Learning, 24, pp.205~214 (1974)
- Schelletter, C., "The development of children’s lexical skills: a cross-linguistic investigation. Paper presented at the International Congress for the Study of Child Language, 2005, Berlin", ~ (2005)
- Shimada, H., "A-chains and unaccusative-unergative distinction in the child grammar: The acquisition of Japanese te-iru constructions In: Proceedings of the 2nd Conference on Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition North America", pp.386~393 (2007), Cascadilla Press
- Tomasello, M., "First Verbs" (1992), MIT Press
- Tshimpli, I.-M., "Functional Categories and Maturation: The Prefunctional Stage of Language Acquisition", 박사, pp.1992
- Watanabe, A., "Case absorption and wh-agreement" (1996), Foris
- Wexler, K., "Theory of phrasal development: Perfection in child Grammar In: Plato’s problem: Papers on language acquisition, MIT Working Papers in Linguisitics", pp.150~209 (2004), MIT Press
- Wolfe-Quintero, K., "Nativism does not equal Universal Grammar", Second Language Research, 12, pp.335~373 (1996)