The Maturation of Syntax

Borer, Hagit; Wexler, Kenneth

doi:10.1007/978-94-009-3727-7_6

Cited by 510 publications

(349 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…They note, however, that passives are rather infrequent overall and those that occur are mainly truncated passives, that is, passives without an expressed by phrase. Truncated passives are consistent with the adjectival analysis proposed in Borer and Wexler (1987). 16 In a longitudinal study of the acquisition of Sesotho, Demuth (1989) reports that the children between the ages of 2;1 and 2;9 (roughly the period under investigation here), produced passives.…”

Section: Do Young Children Have A-chains?supporting

confidence: 75%

“…These criteria were: number of different verb types, type/token rations, and active-passive alternation. With respect to the first two criteria, the simple appearance of 'passive' verbs (whether types or tokens) without a by phrases is consistent with the adjectival analysis proposed by Borer & Wexler (1987). A&B note that Leo used the werden passive "with a von-(by) phrase several times around age 2;9 and 2;10," but they do not provide the frequency of such sentences or any examples.…”

Section: Frequency Effects In the Acquisition Of The Malagasy Voicessupporting

confidence: 58%

“…In marked contrast to the early emergence of A'-movement, A-chain formation of the sort associated with passives is a relatively late development (Bever 1970;Horgan 1976;Maratsos et al 1985;de Villiers 1985;Borer & Wexler 1987;Meints 1999). Many studies of English acquisition have shown that children do not have full comprehension of verbal passives until quite late in development (roughly age 4-5), and that the frequency of spontaneous verbal passives --and especially the use of the by phrase --is quite low.…”

Section: A Vs A' Movementmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…English, Dutch, Icelandic, and Danish. Similarly, while verb movement is an early development, it has been argued, notably by Borer and Wexler (1987), that (certain kinds of) A-movement mature later in development (around age 4 to 5). The late A-chain hypothesis will be discussed in greater detail in section 4.1.…”

Section: A Universalist Approach To Grammatical Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Murasagi (2000) shows that by age 3 Japanese-speaking children have perfect comprehension (100% correct performance) of scrambling (A'-movement), but show mixed results for passives. In a seminal paper, Borer and Wexler (1987) argued that young children do not produce or understand verbal passives because the early grammar does not represent A-chains, a capacity that matures at around 4 to 5 years. They further proposed that prior to that age children have only adjectival passives, which do not involve A-chain formation.…”

Section: A Vs A' Movementmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Acquisition of the Malagasy voicing system: implications for the adult grammar

Hyams¹,

Ntelitheos²,

Manorohanta

2006

Nat Language Linguistic Theory

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In this paper we discuss the acquisition of the voicing system of Malagasy, an Austronesian language. Our study is based on the longitudinal data of 3 children ages 19 to 32 months, and is to our knowledge the first systematic investigation of the acquisition of Malagasy. The Malagasy voicing system has a distinctive morphology and involves the promotion of an argument (actor, theme, instrument, etc.) to a referentially and syntactically prominent position, typically clause-final. We look at two competing accounts of the Malagasy voicing system, one in which the promoted argument is analyzed as a subject and the promotion operation an instance of A-movement (Guilfoyle, Hung & Travis 1992) and a more recent account in which Malagasy is analyzed as a V2-like language in which the promoted argument is a topic and the promotion an instance of A'-movement (Pearson 2001(Pearson , 2005. Both these analyses have clear implications for acquisition, which we examine in this paper. Our acquisition results favor the analysis of the promoted argument as an A'-element. We also show that there is a developmental stage in Malagasy that parallels the root infinitive (RI) stage widely observed in various European languages. Apparent differences between the Germanic RIs and the analogous phenomenon in Malagasy are derived from differences in the functional structure associated with a voicing system as opposed to an agreement system. Malagasy Acquisition.3

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Section: Do Young Children Have A-chains?supporting

confidence: 75%

Section: Frequency Effects In the Acquisition Of The Malagasy Voicessupporting

confidence: 58%