Discrimination of passive predicates by Brazilian Portuguese-speaking children

Abstract

This paper investigates the discrimination of passive predicates by children acquiring Brazilian Portuguese. A truth-value judgment experiment is reported here which assesses 3–4- and 5–6-year-olds’ ability to discriminate eventive/stative and eventive/resultative predicates. The results show an adult-like performance as far as stative and resultative predicates are concerned. As for eventive predicates, children’s performance has not reached the adult-standard, though they do discriminate eventive from stative/resultative predicates. These results are discussed in relation to previous ones with children acquiring European Portuguese and Catalan (Estrela, 2013; Gavarró & Parramon, 2017). A developmental account is provided which aims at reconciling the present and previous results.